Abstract
Plant made biologics have elicited much attention over recent years for their potential in assisting those in developing countries who have poor access to modern medicine. Additional applications such as the stockpiling of vaccines against pandemic infectious diseases or potential biological warfare agents are also under investigation. Plant virus expression vectors represent a technology that enables high levels of pharmaceutical proteins to be produced in a very short period of time. Recent advances in research and development have brought about the generation of superior virus expression systems which can be readily delivered to the host plant in a manner that is both efficient and cost effective. This review presents recent innovations in plant virus expression systems and their uses for producing biologics from plants.
Highlights
It takes just a quick glance at the number and variety of novel biologics that are currently emerging from the commercial sector to realize that the use of plants as production platforms for vaccines and other therapeutic proteins has over time moved from mere theory and into actual practice
The design and implementation of novel transient expression systems through the use of plant virus expression vectors has been one technology that circumvents many of these hurdles
This review will discuss several of the plant virus expression systems that have been developed to date and will provide selected examples of their application in the field of plant-made biologics
Summary
It takes just a quick glance at the number and variety of novel biologics that are currently emerging from the commercial sector to realize that the use of plants as production platforms for vaccines and other therapeutic proteins has over time moved from mere theory and into actual practice. Plant viruses have been developed both as vectors for biopharmaceutical protein production and as research tools for plant functional genomics studies, BioMed Research International by incorporating virus induced gene silencing (VIGS) as a means to target and downregulate specific host transcripts. The latter technology has great implications for the development of crops with improved characteristics, while the former has the potential to launch a new era for the production of biologics. This review will discuss several of the plant virus expression systems that have been developed to date and will provide selected examples of their application in the field of plant-made biologics
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