Postgraduate Researchers in Science Medicine Conference 2005: Abstracts
Towards the production of a vaccine against cervical cancer
Walid Omara and Steve Oliver
Worldwide, cervical cancer represents the second most frequent malignant tumour in women, thus there is urgent need for efficient therapy and prevention against such type of cancer. Development of human cervical carcinoma is associated with infection by certain human papillomavirus (HPV) types, especially types 16 and 18, so protection against HPV infection through vaccination may prevent development of cervical cancer and lower to certain extent the high morbidity and mortality of HPV infections.
This study is a step forward towards the production of a vaccine against HPV based on the Human papillomavirus type 16 L1 protein, self assembled into virus-like particles. To achieve high productivity of the HPV16 L1 protein, different genetic manipulations were performed including the selection of different plasmids as vectors, mutant S. cerevisiae strains as an expression system and different promoters were used in the expression construct to study different factors that affect the protein expression.
Since one of the project aims was to demonstrate production and release of the heterologous protein from the mutant yeast cells, GFP was chosen as a good candidate for this purpose. Data on both L1 production and the GFP model system have been reported.
Walid Omara, Molecules to Cells, The Michael Smith Building, Faculty of Life Sciences, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester
Postgrad Talent NW is supported by the NW Regional Hub of the Research Councils’ UK GRAD Programme.
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