Virus-like particles derived from bacteriophage MS2 as antigen scaffolds and RNA protective shells

The versatile potential of bacteriophage MS2-derived virus-like particles (VLPs) in medical biotechnology has been extensively studied during the last 30 years. Since the first reports showing that MS2 VLPs can be produced at high yield and relatively easily engineered, numerous applications have been proposed. Particular effort has been spent in developing MS2 VLPs as protective capsules and delivery platforms for diverse molecules, such as chemical compounds, proteins and nucleic acids. Among these, two are particularly noteworthy: as scaffolds displaying heterologous epitopes for vaccine development and as capsids for encapsulation of foreign RNA. In this review, we summarize the progress in developing MS2 VLPs for these two areas.