ATL Bear said:VLPs are the structures used to deliver things like the HepB antigen. So right there in what you quoted. I guess think of them as the vessel of delivering the broader viral information into these types of vaccines. Thus again making the way the mRNA vaccine is delivered novel.D. C. Bear said:ATL Bear said:It's in there. Never the full profile as that would be the equivalent of infection, but I used the term "broader" profile. They use several methods such as recombinant tech to present it, while weakening viral components that make it dangerous. And it's RNA in the case of diseases like Flu. COVID is an RNA virus, ala reason for my edit.D. C. Bear said:ATL Bear said:Using the actual Hep B protein gene provides the full DNA profile. The yeast is simply the production catalyst/environment like chicken eggs for flu vaccine. The COVID vaccine isolated the spike protein RNA only not the full RNA pathogen profile. That part is also the novel part of this vaccine. (Edited above. Should have said RNA not DNA for COVID)D. C. Bear said:ATL Bear said:Wrong. It skipped the pathogen part and used the body to mimic a specific antigen to generate an immune response. The problem is that the antigen was so specific (simple protein), unnatural (didn't act like the COVID protein because of the need for stability in replication), and absent a broader DNA profile of the pathogen that our T and B cell defenses struggled with even the simplest mutations and variants.D. C. Bear said:ATL Bear said:
You're hung up on semantics and not science. This was a completely novel approach that doesn't operate like any vaccines in the past. The lack of actual pathogen limited T cell inscription and we're discovering its long term efficacy in an active human trial. It has operated more like a therapeutic vaccine (limiting disease severity vs limiting infection and spread).
It was a completely novel approach in how the pathogenic material was presented to the immune system, but not a completely novel approach in using just a part of the disease-causing pathogen. Other vaccines that use just part of a pathogen (subunit vaccines) have been around for decades, so you are not correct when you say "[t]his was a completely novel approach that doesn't operate like any vaccines in the past." Instead, it was a completely novel approach that did, in fact, operate like several other vaccines in the past.
It is the "using the body" part that was novel. The hepatitis B vaccine does the same kind of thing except that it uses yeast instead of the body's own cells to create the surface protein for the body to recognize. For whatever reason, the Hepatitis B vaccine does not struggle to maintain its efficacy despite not having the "broader DNA profile of the pathogen." This would indicate that a vaccine does not always require the "broader DNA profile of the pathogen" to work well. Given that, one would suspect that the nature of the viruses rather than the nature of the vaccines is what accounts for the differences between the relative effectiveness of the those two vaccines.
According to everything I have read, The Hep B vaccine does not contain hepatitis viral DNA. Nor does the NOVOVAX COVID vaccine contain COVID-19 DNA. Nor do protein-based flu vaccines contain the full DNA pathogen profile of influenza. Given those facts, this does not appear to be a novel part of the mRNA Covid vaccines.
https://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/types-of-vaccine
"Virus Like Particles
Virus-like particles (VLPs) are molecules that closely resemble viruses, but are non-infectious because they contain no viral genetic material. They can be naturally occurring or synthesized through the individual expression of viral structural proteins, which can then self-assemble into the virus-like structure. In some cases, the antigens in a VLP vaccine are the viral structural proteins themselves. Alternatively, the VLPs can be manufactured to present antigens from another pathogen on the surface, or even multiple pathogens at once. As each VLP has multiple copies of an antigen on its surface it is more effective at stimulating an immune response that a single copy. In some cases, the structural proteins of the VLP can act as adjuvants, helping to strengthen the immune response to the primary target antigen.
A handful of VLP-based vaccines are currently used worldwide:
Hepatitis B vaccine
HPV vaccine"
Where are you finding something different?
Our T and B cells destroy and log everything within pathogens, bacteria, etc. and vaccine components. The more it has the better it can recognize not just the primary, but be ready for other variants. It's really amazing what our bodies can do naturally.
But if you need a direct quote source.Quote:
Structural classification of VLPs
VLPs are formed by spontaneous interaction between one or more viral structural capsid proteins to form the final structure. VLPs are structurally and visually similar to live viruses but lack either a complete virus genome or lack the entire virus genome. The variety of structures adopted by different VLPs makes them structurally and functionally attractive.
https://jnanobiotechnology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12951-021-00806-7#:~:text=Viral%2Dlike%20particles%20(VLPs),plants%2C%20insects%2C%20and%20bacteria.
It makes sense that a whole pathogen vaccine would provide broader protection, but I am still not seeing a difference in how the immune system responds to the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines vs a protein subunit vaccine where the protein is produced outside the body.
The way it is delivered is novel, but what it presents to the immune system isn't.