%0 Journal Article
%T Using transgenic plants as bioreactors to produce edible vaccines
%A Karyn Scissum Gunn
%A Narendra Singh
%A Joseph Giambrone
%A Hongzhuan Wu
%J Journal of Biotech Research
%D 2012
%I 
%X Expression of antigens as vaccines, and of immune modulating antibodies using transgenic plants as bioreactors is a convenient and inexpensive source for production of high-interest immunotherapeutic molecules. Toward development of edible vaccines, transgenes of various antigens and antibodies have been expressed successfully in plants, and have been shown to retain their native functionalities. Antigens from several human and veterinary pathogens have been expressed in transgenic plants, including Norwalk virus, rabies, HIV, measles, hepatitis B, anthrax, infectious bursal disease virus, avian reovirus and avian influenza virus. High consideration is being given to addressing technical challenges that can limit expression of immunotherapeutic proteins at sufficient levels in plants. Fully harnessing the efficiency of plant systems¡¯ production of recombinant proteins will further support their use as bioreactors and provide efficacious next-generation alternatives to traditional vaccine production and administration protocols. Production of edible subunit-based recombinant vaccine proteins in the form of leaves, seeds or fruit is expected to be cost effective, and products will be easily stored and transported under limited refrigeration without degradation. Administration of commercial edible vaccines will require significantly less labor and technical training of medical and veterinary personnel. Despite these promising attributes, there still remain concerns and challenges with edible vaccine development, such as achieving maximum expression levels, possible immune tolerance and allergy, as well as environmental contamination concerns. Notwithstanding these issues, expression of recombinant proteins in transgenic plant bioreactors is currently under development for a number of human and animal diseases. This article attempts to describe current approaches used in the preparation of prospective edible vaccine proteins, as well as a success story in production of vaccine-quality recombinant immunoprotective proteins against chicken infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) in Arabidopsis thaliana as a solid step in proof-of-principle for the continued development of edible vaccines technologies in plants.
%K Edible vaccines
%K transgenic plants
%K bio-reactor
%K epidemic diseases
%K efficacy
%U http://www.btsjournals.com/Documents/2012v4p92-99.pdf