The obtaining of transgenic tomato plant producing chimerical proteins TBI-HBsAg.

Abstract

Human immunodeficiency and hepatitis B viruses (HIV and HBV, respectively) are pathogens that cause serious deceases. These infections spread at high rates and have the nature ofare global epidemics. According to the data of WHO, two to three million humans die annually from acquainted immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) caused by HIV [1]. The average number of chronic carriers of HBV is an average of 350 million personspeople. The mortality caused by HBV infection reaches kills 1 million people a year [2]. One of the key goals of fighting against HIV infection is to design an effective vaccine. The necessity to activate efforts in designing a vaccine against AIDS was postulated by the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS, devoted to the strategy of fighting against AIDS [3]. Prophylactic protection against HBV infection may be performed solely by immunization. The existing subunit vaccine, based on the surface antigen HBsAg, is fairly expensive and cannot be used for mass-scale vaccination. One of the most promising current directions in designing novel types of vaccines is the development of “edible” vaccines, based on transgenic plants. Target genes coding for antigenic proteins against one or another pathogen are introduced into the genome of these plants. Edible vaccines are characterized by a number of advantages over other types of vaccines: they are inexpensive and may be stored and transported without refrigerators. Immunization occurs as a result of eating fruit, seeds, or leaves of these plants (i.e., the risk of infection, unlike injection vaccines, is absent). When edible vaccines are used for food, protein antigens interact with the gastric mucosa and activate the mucosal immune response [4]; as a result, immune proteins (antibodies) against corresponding infectious agent are synthesized in the body. To date, a number of transgenic plants have been obtained that are studied as candidate edible vaccines against rabies, murrain, hepatitis B, and some other viruses [5‐8]. In most cases, these transgenic plants (e.g., tobacco or potato) are either almost or completelyhardly suitable or unsuitable for eating without preliminary thermal treatment. For this reason, an important problem in designing edible vaccines is obtaining such transgenic plants, the vegetative or generative organs of which may be used for food without thermal treatment. The purpose of this work was to obtain transgenic tomato plants, the genome of which contained the target hybrid gene that encoded the chimerical protein consisting of antigenic determinants of HIV-1 and HBV protective proteins. The study included the design of a hybrid agrobacterial molecular vector, suitable for