Plant made Edible Vaccines: A New Approach for Agriculture and Human Health

U. K. Kandoliya* , D. N.Vakharia and B.A.Golakiya

DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMISTRY
COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE,
JUNAGADH AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY,
JUNAGADH

Vaccination is a great asset for eradication of infectious diseases. With the prevalence
of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains and an alarming increase in new and re-emerging
pathogens, the need for vaccination continues to be a high priority for mammalian diseases.
Today, the researchers are in the quest of developing genetically altered plants that could
provide protection to infectious diseases through modified product expressed in plant (Rathore
and Shekhawat, 2007). Plant products acting as vaccines would be inexpensive to produce and
thus can easily be made available in developing countries.
Conventional Vaccines: Vaccination is a term derived from the Latin word vacca (cow, after
the cowpox material used by Edward Jenner in the first vaccination). A vaccine stimulates the
antibody production without causing of the disease. Typically, vaccines against human diseases
have been composed of killed or attenuated live organisms or those whose host differs from the
vaccinated species (Streatfield et.al., 2001). A subunit vaccine composed of one or more
subunits of an antigenic protein from a disease-causing organism can also be immunogenically
protective.
Drawback of conventional vaccines: The cost of these vaccines is one of the major
drawbacks. The principal cost of most vaccines are in production, packaging, delivery as well
as use of disposable needles and syringes, trained personnel to administer injections and
refrigeration required during transport and storage. Moreover, there may have risk of residual
virulence and reversion to virulence in some cases (Lal et.al., 2007).
Plant made vaccines: Plant made vaccines (Edible vaccines) are sub-unit vaccines where the
selected gene is introduced into the plant and the transgenic plant is used to manufacture the
encoded protein (Sarah and Hellman, 2005). The plant expressing the vaccine antigen when
consumed are expected to provide the antigenic stimulus that will generate an immune
response in the host (Swamy et al., 2003).
Tobacco plant has been cloned for Protective Antigen (PA) gene and expressed for
edible vaccine against anthrax (Aziz et.al, 2002). The DNA fragment encoding hepatitis B
virus surface antigen was introduced into Agrobacterium tumerifacience and used to obtain
transgenic lupine and lettuce expressing envelope surface protein (Kapusta, 1999). In addition
to the above the development of plant-based vaccines to protect against many other diseases
such as HIV, hepatitis B, rabies etc. are in progress.
Another immunoprotectant class of edible vaccines produces through plant known as
plantibodies. Plantibodies are antibodies which are produced in plants by inserting gene
encoding antibodies from animal source to plant (Stefan et.al., 2002). Several functional
antibodies fragment antigen-binding (Fab) and single chain antibody fragments (ScFv) are
expressed in the leaves and seeds of plants without the loss of binding specificity (Kathuria,
2002).
Advantages and disadvantages: Low cost, oral delivery,
 • no refrigeration requirement, elicit mucosal, systemic immunity, effective distribution
in developing countries, no purification required all these are the major advantages of edible
vaccines (Atosa et al.,2006). The major drawbacks are the dosage of the vaccines would be
variable in plant and decide the number of doses required for particular disease. Secondly, if
edible vaccine containing fruits consumed in large quantity instead of normal dose may cause
the adverse effect (Lal et.al.,2007).
Why plants fit for production of vaccines:
Most of the proteins cannot be chemically synthesized; there are very few options
available: mammalian and microbial cell cultures and plants. Choice of host system affects
overall production cost, product quality, timescale, scale-up capacity and biosafety (Aziz
Elbehri, 2006). Although transgenic animals, bacteria and fungi are utilized for the production
of proteins, highest economic benefit may likely be achieved with plants using plants to
produce pharmaceutical proteins (Alessandro and Emanuela, 2005).
Challenges : Differences exist in glycosylation between plants and animals is the major
problem which can be overcome by insertion of genes that encode for CMP-sialic acid
synthetase and CMP-sialic acid transporter and elimination of fucosyl and xylosyl residues
from the N-glycans (Sibila., 2005). Problem of low expression of protein can be overcome by
chloroplast expression system.
Conclusion: Plant derived edible vaccine are safer and more effective immunization. They
would overcome some of the difficulties associated with conventional vaccines like
production, distribution and delivery. They have passed the major hurdles in the path of an
emerging vaccine technology. However, the scientific community still struggling with complex
diseases likes HIV, Malaria, rabies, cancer etc.

REFERENCES
Alessandro V. and Emanuela P.(2005). Molecular Interventions 5:216-225,
Atosa A., Rahmani N. and Abdolahi M. (2006). International Journal of
Pharmacology, 2(3) :268-279
Aziz Elbehri (2006). The journal of biotechnology management and
economics,8(1):1-11.
Aziz MA, Singh S, Anand Kumar P. and Bhatnagar R.,(2002). Biochem
Biophys Res Commun. 299(3):345-51.
Kapusta J., Modelska A., Filerowicz M., Pneiwski T., Letellier M., Lisowa O., Yusibov V.,
Koprowski H., Plucienniczak A. and Legocki A. B. (1999). The FASEB Journal, 13:
1796-1799.
Kathuria S. R., Nath R., Pal R., Singh O., Fischer R., Lohiya N. K. and
Talwar G. P. (2002). Current Science, 82(12), 1452-1457
Lal P., Ramachandran V.G., Goyal R. and Sharma R. (2007). Indian Journal
of Medical Microbiology, 25 (2):93-102
Rathore M. S. and Shekhawat N.S. (2007). Current Science,87(10):25
Sarah L. and Hellman C. (2005). Health affairs 24(3): 758-769
Sibila J., Snjezana M. and Natasa B,(2005). Current Studies of Biotechnology 4:121-127
Stefan S , Emans N. and Fischer R., (2002). Phytochemistry Reviews: 45–
54.
Streatfield S.J., Jilka J.M., Hood E.E., Turner D.D., Bailey M.R., Mayor J.M.,
Woodard S.L., Beifuss K.K., Horn M.E., Delaney D.E., Tizard I.R. and
Howard J.A,(2001).Vaccine 19 :2742 –2748,2001
Swamy K T, Reddy N. S. and Sambasiva Rao K. R. (2003). African Journal
of Biotechnology 2 (12):679-683.

*PG Seminar delivered by U.K.Kandoliya