Scalable purification enables high-quality virus-like particles for therapeutic translation

Owing to their robust cell-entry capacity, virus-like particles (VLPs) represent a technology of choice in genome editing, where low doses of heterologous proteins and nucleic acids are essential. However, clinical translation of VLP vectors is hindered by inadequate purification methods.

Current approaches, relying primarily on ultracentrifugation, suffer from inconsistent product quality and poor scalability. Here, we report the development of a broadly applicable purification strategy that improves the purity and therapeutic efficacy of genome-editing VLPs. Considering the characteristic properties of murine leukemia virus (MLV)-derived engineered VLPs (eVLPs) and HIV-derived engineered nucleocytosolic vehicles for loading of programmable editors (ENVLPEs+), we developed a workflow that involves single- and multi-modal chromatographic steps, effectively removing host cell proteins and cell-culture contaminants while improving VLP integrity and biological activity.