Expression of sapovirus virus-like particles in mammalian cells

Sapovirus (SaV) is an etiological agent of acute gastroenteritis in human and swine. SaV can be divided into five genogroups, GI to GV. Virus-like particles (VLPs) morphologically similar to native SaV have been expressed for GI, GII, GIII and GV strains in insect cells, although only low expression levels were observed for GII strains. In this study, we report the successful expression of SaV GII VLPs using cultured mammalian COS-7 and 293T cells. Our results demonstrated that this mammalian expression system was able to express and form SaV VLPs.