Abstract
The immunoprophylaxis of hepatitis B is hampered by the lack of a technique for growing hepatitis B virus (HBV) in tissue culture. Plasma from persistently infected individuals1, one source of viral antigen, contains characteristic 22-nm spherical particles which share a common antigen (the hepatitis B surface antigen or HBsAg) with the outer envelope of the 42-nm double-shelled DNA virus. Highly purified inactivated 22-nm particles have been shown to be safe and to confer protective immunity against HBV in a recent large-scale clinical trial2. We have already described the extraction from the particles of a complex of two proteins which are antigenic determinants of HBV—the polypeptide with molecular weight (MW) between 22,000 and 24,000 (called p23) and the glycosylated polypeptide (called gp28) with MW in the range 26,000–29,000 which is thought to be the glycosylated form of p23. We now report the preparation from this complex of water-soluble protein micelles which may be a suitable basis for a second-generation hepatitis B vaccine.
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Skelly, J., Howard, C. & Zuckerman, A. Hepatitis B polypeptide vaccine preparation in micelle form. Nature 290, 51–54 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/290051a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/290051a0
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