Applications of Plant-derived Vaccines for Developing Countries

Kathleen Laura Hefferon

doi:10.4172/2329-9088.1000106

Abstract

Plants offer tremendous advantages as cost-effective, safe and efficacious platforms for the large-scale production of vaccines and other therapeutic proteins. Plant-derived vaccines provide a way by which to enhance vaccine coverage for children in developing countries, and have the potential via oral administration to elicit a mucosal immune response. Plants have the added advantage of simultaneously acting as an antigen delivery vehicle to the mucosal immune system while preventing the antigen from degradation as it passes through the gastrointestinal tract. Transgenic plants, transplastomic plants and plant virus expression vectors have been designed to express vaccine epitopes as well as full therapeutic proteins in plant tissue. This review describes the use of different strategies to produce vaccines in plants against three deadly infectious diseases of the developing world today; human papillomavirus, human immunodeficiency virus and Ebola virus.

Highlights

In the third world, infectious diseases are the leading cause of infant mortality
A primary reason for this high prevalence continues to be the lack of cost-effective and accessible vaccines and other biopharmaceutical proteins, including monoclonal antibodies, which are readily available in industrialized countries
Vaccines produced from plants have the dual advantage of acting as the vaccine delivery vehicle as well as protect the vaccine protein from degradation by the harsh environment of the gastrointestinal tract, so that it can reach the mucosal immune system more effectively [3]

Summary

Introduction

A primary reason for this high prevalence continues to be the lack of cost-effective and accessible vaccines and other biopharmaceutical proteins, including monoclonal antibodies, which are readily available in industrialized countries. These discrepancies were addressed in 1992 at the Children’s Vaccine Initiative, a platform by which globally accessible oral vaccines are generated through an assembly of philanthropic groups in conjunction with the World Health Organization. The mucosal membrane of the digestive, respiratory, and urogenital tracts are often sites of entry for infectious diseases It is here where antigen uptake, processing, and presentation for eliciting mucosal responses take place. Immune cells such as B cells can migrate via the lymphatic system to regional lymph nodes, where the primary immune response, including IgA and IgG antibody production, takes place [17]

Technology Platforms Used to Generate Biopharmaceuticals in Plants

Ebola virus

Findings

Conclusions