ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Virology
This article is part of the Research TopicVirus-like Particle-based Vaccines: Strategies for Multi-Pathogen ImmunityView all articles
Antibody Response Induced by Structural Proteins from Triatoma virus as Potential Adjuvants in Experimental Immunisation Models
Provisionally accepted
Aline Maria Vasconcelos Queiroz1Annamairlla do Nascimento Oliveira1Alzira Regina Silva de Deus1Ingrid Emilliane Fonseca de Oliveira1
Isaias Amâncio dos Santos1
Fred Luciano Neves Santos2
Paola Fiorani Celedon3Diego M A Guérin4
Ana Rosa Viguera4
Marcelo Sousa-Silva1*- 1Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil
- 2Instituto Goncalo Moniz, Salvador, Brazil
- 3Instituto de Biologia Molecular do Parana, Curitiba, Brazil
- 4Universidad del Pais Vasco, Leioa, Spain
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Virus-Like Particles (VLPs) are viral protein structures widely used as adjuvants in vaccine formulations due to their ability to stimulate the innate immune response, thereby contributing to the activation of adaptive immunity through the production of different IgG subclasses. The present study evaluated the adjuvant potential of recombinant structural proteins of the Triatoma virus VLPs (TrV-VLPs: VP1, VP2, and VP3) in experimental immunisation protocols for American Cutaneous leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. BALB/c mice were immunised with native antigens of Leishmania amazonensis or chimeric recombinant antigens of Trypanosoma cruzi in association with different adjuvants, including aluminium hydroxide (alum), Freund's Incomplete Adjuvant (FIA), and viral structural proteins (VPs). The induction of specific antibodies (anti-L. amazonensis or anti-recombinant proteins of T. cruzi) was measured by ELISA to determine the IgG subclass profiles. Immunisation with L. amazonensis antigens revealed that VPs preferentially induced IgG2b and IgG3, whereas in experiments with T. cruzi antigens, IgG2b was predominant, accompanied by similar levels of IgG2a and IgG3, compared to lower IgG1 responses. These findings suggest that recombinant structural proteins of TrV-VLPs (VP1, VP2 and VP3) represent a promising adjuvant strategy capable of modulating humoral immune responses, offering potential applications in vaccine development against protozoan parasites such as Leishmania spp. and T. cruzi.
Keywords: adjuvant, Humoral Immune Response, immunisation models, Recombinant Proteins, Triatoma virus, Vaccine, Virus-like particles (VLPs)
Received: 25 Nov 2025; Accepted: 06 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Queiroz, Oliveira, de Deus, de Oliveira, dos Santos, Santos, Celedon, Guérin, Viguera and Sousa-Silva. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Marcelo Sousa-Silva
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