Parvovirus B19 (B19V) is the only known pathogenic human parvovirus. Infection by this viral pathogen can cause transient aplastic crisis in individuals with high red cell turnover, pure red cell aplasia in immunosuppressed patients, and hydrops fetalis during pregnancy. In children, B19V most commonly causes erythema infectiosum, or fifth's disease. Infection can also cause arthropathy and arthralgia. The virus is very erythrotropic, targeting human erythroid (red blood) progenitors found in the blood, bone marrow, and fetal liver. Currently, there are no approved vaccines or antiviral drugs for the treatment or prevention of B19V infection.

The subject technology is a series of plasmid constructs with codon optimized B19 viral capsid genes (VP1 and VP2) that can be expressed in mammalian cells. Transfection of vectors encoding these optimized VP1 and VP2 genes into different mammalian cell lines, including 293, Cos7, and Hela cells produce virus-like particles (VLPs). The vectors include bicistronic plasmids expressing the VP1 and VP2 proteins at different ratios to produce B19V VLPs with optimal antigenicity for vaccine applications. This technology can also be used for diagnostic applications and development of a viral packaging system for producing infectious B19V virus.