Farming of Plant-Based Veterinary Vaccines and Their Applications for Disease Prevention in Animals

Abstract

Plants have been studied for the production of pharmaceutical compounds for more than two decades now. Ever since the plant-made poultry vaccine against Newcastle disease virus made a breakthrough and went all the way to obtain regulatory approval, research to use plants for expression and delivery of vaccine proteins for animals was intensified. Indeed, in view of the high production costs of veterinary vaccines, plants represent attractive biofactories and offer many promising advantages in the production of recombinant vaccine proteins. Furthermore, the possibility of conducting immunogenicity and challenge studies in target animals has greatly exaggerated the progress. Although there are no edible plant-produced animal vaccines in the market, plant-based vaccine technology has great potentials. In this review, development, uses, and advantages of plant-based recombinant protein production in various expression platforms are discussed. In addition, examples of plant-based veterinary vaccines showing strong indication in terms of efficacy in animal disease prevention are also described.

Recent Advances in Vaccine Technologies

“…The first licensed vaccine to use this expression system was against Newcastle disease virus (NDV) infection in poultry, 16 and it is being investigated for many other vaccine applications, including infectious bronchitis virus, infectious bursal disease virus, ETEC, BVD, and bovine herpes virus. 17,18 Peptide Vaccines…”

Vaccination against Trichinella spiralis: Potential, Limitations and Future Directions

“…Recombinant proteins based in plants can be produced in nuclear-transformed plants, synthesized in the cytoplasm, and can be accu-mulated in different subcellular organelles, or secreted, once an appropriate transit or signal peptides are used [73,74]. Plants are considered an attractive platform for veterinary vaccines, due to low-cost production, sterile delivery, and cold storage/ transportation at ambient temperature, compared to traditional attenuated vaccines, which present some inconvenience in terms of insufficient mass production, residual toxicity, means of transportation, and safety [75].…”

“…Hence, plants could be suitable for direct consumption and useful for the development of animal vaccines [74]. In fact, edible vaccines produced in papaya and corn seed induced protection against porcine-cysticercosis (70-90%) and porcine-transmissible gastroenteritis virus (50%) [76,77].…”

Biotechnological leap in biopharmaceuticals: Current status and challenges ahead

“…Since the plant-made poultry vaccine against Newcastle disease virus made a breakthrough and went all the way to obtain regulatory approval, research to use plants for expression and delivery of vaccine proteins for animals was intensified [92]. This disease mainly affects domestic poultry and many other bird species.This disease is a problem in almost all countries of the world.…”