The present invention relates to methods and compositions for enhancing expression from RNA expression vectores. The invention is based upon the observation that reducing the frequency of the dinucleotide CpG and UpA has a significant effect on expression from such vectores. Aspects of the invention include, amongst others, synthetic RNA vectores, virions, cells, methods of producing vaccines and methods of treatment or immunisation.

The present invention provides purification strategies for sterically demanding, i.e. large and pleomorphic, infectious virus particles or VLPs derived therefrom, preferably having a measles virus scaffold to yield fractions or compositions with a significantly reduced content of contaminating host cell DNA and a reduced content of further process-related impurities. Further provided are methods of propagating and purifying infectious virus particles having a measles virus scaffold suitable to provide a preparation having a strongly reduced content of contaminating host cell DNA and a reduced content of further process-related impurities for immunogenic or anti-tumor purposes. In addition, immunogenic and vaccine compositions based on the above methods are provided. Finally, there are provided immunogenic or vaccine compositions produced by the disclosed methods, which are suitable for use in immunogenic or prophylactic vaccination treatment of a subject in need thereof.

Disclosed herein are methods for the purification of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) particles from a host cell culture comprising treating the host cell culture with an endonuclease, filtering the material to remove cellular debris and/or aggregated material, applying the material to a core bead chromatography resin, and recovering the purified RSV particles. Also disclosed herein are pharmaceutical compositions comprising purified RSV.

The present application relates to the field of glyco-engineering and, more specifically, to eukaryotic cells wherein both an endoglucosaminidase is present and made deficient in UDP-galactose 4-epimerase (GalE). Typically, a glycoprotein is also present in the cells. These cells can be used to deglycosylate or partly deglycosylate the (exogenous) glycoprotein, in particular, without the need for adding an extra enzyme. Methods are also provided for the application of these cells in protein production.

The invention relates to a method for producing influenza infectious viruses wherein CHO cells are infected with a seed of infectious influenza virus which has been generated by transfecting cells with an appropriate set of expression vectors. The invention also relates to a recombination cassette, and to a vector comprising said recombination cassette, that may be used in methods for producing infectious viruses, and particularly in the method according to the invention.

The present invention provides a novel virus-like particle expression vector pTMSCA2C, which is constructed as follows: firstly, using plasmid pTrcHis-MS2 as a starting vector and mutating the base T at position 5 of the gene sequence of MS2 bacteriophage 19mer packaging site on the plasmid pTrcHis-MS2 into C through genetic mutation technologies to obtain a plasmid pTMSC; then, mutating valine which is a amino acid corresponding to the initiation codon on the plasmid pTMSC for encoding the maturase protein of MS2 bacteriophage into methionine to obtain a plasmid pTMSCA; and finally, the gene sequence coding wild type MS2 bacteriophage coat protein, after the removal of the terminator, is linked in series with the gene sequence coding MS2 bacteriophage coat protein comprising histidine-tag which is from a pseudovirus vector pTrcMS, and the gene sequence obtained after linking in series is linked to the plasmid pTMSCA to give pTMSCA2C. When the virus-like particle is prepared by using the expression vector pTMSCA2C of the present invention, the yield and purity of the virus-like particle may be improved while the workload for preparation of virus-like particles may be greatly reduced.

Compositions and method for treating a folate-resistant disease in a subject are disclosed. The methods involve administering to the subject an effective amount of a composition containing a formate. For example, the method can be used to reducing the risk of neural tube defects during pregnancy. The method can also be used to treat other conditions normally treatable by folate supplementation.

Provided herein are attenuated influenza viruses and methods of making attenuated influenza viruses.

The present invention relates to a methodology for the generation of infectious ribonucleoparticles (RNPs) of negative-strand RNA viruses, and in particular of non-segmented negative-strand RNA viruses in yeast, especially in budding yeast. Accordingly, the patent application relates to a recombinant yeast strain suitable for the rescue of infectious non-segmented negative-strand RNA virus particles or infectious virus-like particles. The invention also relates to the use of the recombinant yeast to prepare vaccine seed and to the use of the produced RNPs or RNPs-like to prepare vaccine formulations. It also concerns the use of the recombinant yeast for the screening of libraries of DNA.

A system for sampling and separating submicron-sized particles to detect the presence of an agent such as viruses in an environmental sample, which includes collecting means for collecting a sample suspected of containing submicron-sized particles from the environment, size separation means receiving the submicron-sized particles from the collecting means for separating the submicron-sized particles based on size into at least one size range, and a microscale particle counter adapted for counting the size separated submicron-sized particles received from the size separation means. The particle counter includes at least one cantilever each corresponding to submicron-sized particles of a particular size range, wherein the cantilever is deflectable from a first to a second position to permit passage of the submicron-sized particle therethrough, and wherein the corresponding deflection of the cantilever generates a count signal.