• International Journal of Industrial Entomology and Biomaterials
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.90-97
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• 2016

The major structural proteins of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) are derived from ORFs 4, 5, and 6. They have been considered very important to arouse the humoral and cellular immune responses against PRRSV infection and proposed to be the excellent candidate proteins in the design of PRRS bioengineering vaccine. However, the PRRSV structural proteins are produced in low levels in the infected cells because it forms insoluble protein and possesses several transmembrane regions. To overcome this problem, we fused the ORF4, ORF5, and ORF6 with SUMO (small ubiquitin-related modifier). The resulting fusion protein SUMO-ORF4, -ORF5, and -ORF6 were highly expressed in Bm5 cells. The level of protein expression using the Bombyx mori larvae was higher than that using Bm5 cells. In addition, fusion to SUMOstar, which is not processed by native SUMO proteases, significantly enhanced protein expression levels compared to SUMO fusion. This study demonstrated that SUMO or SUMOstar, when fused with PRRSV structural proteins, was able to promote its soluble expression. This may be a better method to produce PRRSV structural proteins for vaccine development.