Abstract
Coronavirus (CoV) diseases, including Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) have gained in importance worldwide, especially with the current COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. Due to the huge global demand, various types of vaccines have been developed, such as more traditional attenuated or inactivated viruses, subunit and VLP-based vaccines, as well as novel DNA and RNA vaccines. Nonetheless, emerging new COVID-19 variants are necessitating continuous research on vaccines, including these produced in plants, either via stable expression in transgenic or transplastomic plants or transient expression using viral vectors or agroinfection. Plant systems provide low cost, high scalability, safety and capacity to produce multimeric or glycosylated proteins. To date, from among CoVs antigens, spike and capsid proteins have been produced in plants, mostly using transient expression systems, at the additional advantage of rapid production. Immunogenicity of plant-produced CoVs proteins was positively evaluated after injection of purified antigens. However, this review indicates that plant-produced CoVs proteins or their carrier-fused immunodominant epitopes can be potentially applied also as mucosal vaccines, either after purification to be administered to particular membranes (nasal, bronchus mucosa) associated with the respiratory system, or as oral vaccines obtained from partly processed plant tissue.
Highlights
Coronaviruses (CoVs) are clinically relevant pathogens that infect humans, livestock, mice, birds and many other wild animals [1]
This family of viruses has gained in clinical relevance since 2003, when a new human coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) was responsible for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
Due to the fact that the greatest diversity of CoVs has been found in bats [7], the hypothesis has been proposed that more recent CoV introductions to humans were originally bat viruses that propagate to an intermediate host, which exposed humans to the viruses
Summary
Coronaviruses (CoVs) are clinically relevant pathogens that infect humans, livestock, mice, birds and many other wild animals [1] They cause localized infections in the respiratory and/or intestinal tracts, in the liver and the central nervous system of their hosts [2]. CoVs are divided into four genera: the alpha, beta, gamma, and delta coronaviruses [2] This family of viruses has gained in clinical relevance since 2003, when a new human coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) was responsible for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Due to the rapid spread of the virus around the world, COVID-19 was declared to be a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020 The origin of this outbreak was associated with the Wuhan Wholesale Seafood Market, where seafood is traded, and exotic fauna [6]. The exponential spread of SARS-CoV-2 together with the emerging outbreaks of new CoVs in recent years highlights the urgent need to develop effective therapies and vaccines against these pathogens
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