Plant-made vaccines: biotechnology and immunology in animal health

Abstract

The use of plants as production systems for vaccine antigens has been actively investigated over the last 15 years. The original research focused on the value of this expression system for oral delivery based on the hypothesis that plant-expressed antigens would be more stable within the digestive tract and would allow for the use of the oral route of administration to stimulate a mucosal immune response. However, while first conceived for utility via the oral route, plant-made antigens have also been studied as classical immunogens delivered via a needle to model animal systems. Antigens have been expressed in a number of whole plant and cell culture systems. Several alternative expression platforms have been developed to increase expression of antigens or to elicit preferred immunological responses. The biotechnological advances in plant expression and the immunological testing of these antigens will be reviewed in this paper focusing primarily on diseases of livestock and companion animals.

An Oral Vaccine Based on U-Omp19 Induces Protection against B. abortus Mucosal Challenge by Inducing an Adaptive IL-17 Immune Response in Mice

“…Yet, in cattle and other ruminants protein administration by the oral route would have a negative side because of the enhanced antigen degradation in the rumen, previous to the passage to the intestine [3]. However, antigens expressed in plant would be protected by bioencapsulation, enhancing the antigen delivery to the gut-associated lymphoid tissue [30], [31], [48].…”

Chloroplast‐derived vaccines against human diseases: achievements, challenges and scopes

“…(1999) and Walsh and Jefferis (2006), more than 50% of the proteins in eukaryotes and one‐third of approved biopharmaceuticals are glycoproteins. Although the activity of many proteins is not affected by glycosylation, it can be critical in case of other proteins (Rice et al. , 2005).…”

Characterization of Antigenic Determinants in ApxIIA Exotoxin Capable of Inducing Protective Immunity toActinobacillus pleuropneumoniaeChallenge

“…Although plants and yeast are widely used as vehicles for oral vaccine delivery (Mason et al, 2002;Streatfield, 2006;Galao et al, 2007), high-level expression of the heterologous antigen protein is difficult to achieve in practice (Rice et al, 2005). Because there is an intrinsic limit to the level of antigen expression in transgenic organisms, the antigen may be fused to cholera toxin or to the heat-labile E. coli enterotoxin, both of which are capable of targeting antigen to oral mucosal site to obtain an efficient delivery of the limited number of antigen proteins to mucosal immune induction site (Liljeqvist et al, 1997;Harakuni et al, 2005).…”