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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Sep 3.
Published in final edited form as: Expert Rev Vaccines. 2017 Sep 4;16(10):973–985. doi: 10.1080/14760584.2017.1371594

Figure 2. Schematic representation of VLPs expressing HIV antigens and CD40L activating Env-specific B cells and dendritic cells for cross-presentation.

Figure 2.

Virus-like particles (VLPs) are produced to express trimeric Env and CD40L on the surface. A) VLPs activate B cells through interactions between Env and B cell receptors (BCR) as well as between CD40L and CD40 on B cells. CD40L mediated activation of B cells could promote affinity maturation, isotype switching, proliferation and survival leading to development of long lived memory B cells and plasma cells. B) CD40-CD40L interactions between VLPs and dendritic cells (DCs) leads to DC activation by upregulating T cell co-stimulatory molecules and cytokine production resulting in generation of long lived memory CD8 T cells [83]. Env expression on VLPs increases their targeting to DCs by binding to CD4.