Guidelines for Small-Scale Production and Purification of Hepatitis B Surface Antigen Virus-Like Particles from Recombinant Pichia pastoris.

Virus-like particle (VLP)-based vaccines have been in the market since decades for preventing viral infection and have proven their usefulness also in other areas of biotechnology. Here, we describe in detail simple small-scale production and purification procedures for the generation of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) VLPs using Pichia pastoris as expression host. This protocol may also be applicable with variations to other HBsAg-based VLPs additionally carrying antigens of other pathogens.