The potential of plant viral vectors and transgenic plants for subunit vaccine production

Abstract

This chapter presents the case that plants can be used for the production of subunit vaccines and outlines the systems that are available for their production. The limits of plant biology are explored along with the limits of the differing expression systems that are available. Vaccination has led to a significant improvement in the health of the world's population. The use of vaccines has reduced the spread and infection of a number of major human diseases, including measles, mumps, rubella, and tetanus. With the advent of recombinant technologies, subunit vaccines based on proteins expressed in bacteria and yeast have grown in popularity. Because subunit vaccines do not contain an infectious agent that can revert to a more virulent form or survive the inactivation process, they offer advantages over live vaccines, because they are incapable of causing disease. Interest in vaccine production in plants has also expanded rapidly. There are considerable advantages in expressing antigenic proteins in plants. Plants can be grown locally and cheaply using standard methods, thus reducing problems with distribution, transport, and storage. Several considerations must be addressed when expressing proteins in plants for the purpose of vaccination; the protein must retain the immunogenic characteristics of the original protein and be capable of inducing a protective response to the disease.