Overview of VirD™ — membrane-embedded protein arrays.

Virion Display (VirD™) is a novel microarray that uses virions to display functional membrane proteins. It can be scaled or tailored for different modalities including high-content, high-throughput platforms for screening ligands and drugs of human membrane proteins against drug-relevant targets such as GPCRs, immune checkpoints, and neuronal receptors.

The first VirD prototype was developed in 2013 by CDI’s Director of Proteomic Sciences Shaohui Hu, working with Prashant Desai, Heng Zhu, and others at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In this initial work, both single-pass and multiple-pass human transmembrane proteins were engineered for display in the membrane envelope of herpes simplex virions. Purified virions were then printed on glass to form the first high-density Virion Display arrays (VirD array).

In 2019, Guan-Da Syu, et al created the first VirD-Human G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) array, or VirD-GPCR array, which contains 315 properly folded, non-olfactory GPCRs.  This work demonstrated that the embedded membrane proteins on VirD arrays retain proper folding and normal biochemical interactions; the membrane proteins in these arrays retained a wide variety of normal functions including antibody staining, lectin binding, and ligand binding. The VirD array platform holds tremendous potential for high-throughput screening for novel drugs, affinity reagents, and natural ligands.

VirD™ references.

• Hu, S. et al. VirD: A Virion Display Array for Profiling Functional Membrane Proteins. Anal. Chem. 85, 8046–8054 (2013).

• Syu, G.-D. et al. Development and application of a high-content virion display human GPCR array. Nat Commun 10, 1997 (2019).