Vaccination is the immunization that help organisms against infectious disease. A vaccine usually contains agent that resembles weakened or killed pathogenic agent, its toxic or its surface protein. The agent stimulates immune system of organism to recognize it as a threat as well as anything related to this agent, and destroy them.
Biotechnology has been utilized in vaccine innovation, especially in vaccine based on proteins, which allows cells express useful proteins. Among models for expressing proteins, yeast or unicellular fungus are considered to be the first choice as a protein expressing host, due to their highly efficient heterologous gene expression systems, wide range of using substrates and easily manipulated genome.
Genome engineering technology allows scientists to insert surface proteins of virus, fungus and parasite in yeast cells for medical applications, as well as cancer-related proteins.
Expression of viral proteins in yeast is able to induce an immune response against viral proteins. Due to the development of molecular biology tools, researcher have built better understand of viral genome and viral proteins as prophylactic vaccines. By introducing gene encoding viral protein into yeast cells, they can produce recombinant proteins that are active as vaccine.
| Pathogen | Disease | Antigen |
|---|---|---|
| Papillomavirus | Human Papilloma | HPV16 L1, VP1, HPV11, HPV18 |
| Hepatitis B virus | Hepatitis | HBsAg, Hepatitis B core protein |
| Hepatitis C virus | Hepatitis | HCV NS3-Core fusion protein |
| Enterovirus 71 | Foot, hand and mouth disease | EV71 structural protein |
| Coxsackievirus A16 | Foot, hand and mouth disease | ChiEV-A71 VLPs |
| Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) | Encephalitis | JEV envelope protein |
| Puumala hantavirus (PUUV) | Hemorrhagic Fever | Nucleocapsid protein |
| Hamster polyomavirus | Epithelioma (Syrian hamsters) | Hamster polyomavirus |
| Parvovirus | Aplastic crisis | VP1 and VP2 |
| Dengue virus | Dengue | scEDIII |
| HIV | AIDS | HIV-1 envelope (Env) glycoprotein |
| Red-spotted grouper NNV | Nervous necrosis | Capsid protein |
| SHIV | AIDS | SHIVenv B |
| Varicella-zoster virus | Chickenpox | Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) gE |
Due to the availability of antibiotics, bacterial diseases are easily controlled. However, as a high-expression and easily manipulated host, yeast still have great potential to be employed to produce vaccine, especially edible vaccine (or oral vaccine), by introducing gene encoding bacterial proteins into its genome.
| Source of antigen | Diseases | Antigen |
|---|---|---|
| A. pleuropneumoniae | Pleuropneumoniae | ApxlA |
| B. pertussis | Pertussis | Bordetella pertussis pertactin (P69) |
| Bacillus anthracis | Anthrax | 63-kDa form of Bacillus anthracis PA |
| C. botulinum | Botulism | Recombinant fragment from BoNT/C |
| L. monocytogenes | Listeriosis | Listeriolysin O protein |
| Leptospira interrogans | Leptospirosis | LigANI |
| M. tuberculosis | Tuberculosis | Me2-HSP70 protein, hbhA protein |
Transgenic plants have been employed in production of recombinant proteins for various applications like commercialized enzymes, reagents and protein-based pharmaceuticals.
Utilizing plant as a platform to producing vaccine has great potential, by transformation in plant genome, chloroplast genome or transient expression with plant virus expression vectors. Plant-based vaccines are cost-effective and their antigen is relatively stable. Additionally, edible vaccine, also called oral vaccine is more acceptable for patients and it can induce mucosal and systemic immune.
The most popular plant host for vaccine producing is tobacco, it has susceptibility to infection, which is considered to have positive influence to genetic transformation and high-level transient gene expression. As well as many other plants as follows.
With advanced and mature gene editing platform RecoNase™, Lifeasible offers services including gene knock-in and gene knock-out in cyanobacteria, chloroplast and yeast. Our experienced scientists have established efficient and high-precision gene editing toolkit, in which our customers can get satisfying results on time. Please feel free to contact us, get started with our professional services.
