title: Plants as alternative systems for production of vaccines.
abstract: Subunit vaccine production is typically associated with bacterial, yeast, insect or mammalian cell culture systems. Plants, however, are emerging as an alternative platform for producing vaccine antigens, and offer some advantages over other recombinant systems. In particular, plant virus-based transient expression systems are suitable for rapid engineering, ease of scale-up and cost-effective production of target antigens. In addition, this system provides an ideal approach for producing large quantities of vaccine antigens in a short period of time, which is particularly important when faced with natural outbreaks or accidental or intended release of bio-threat agents such as Bacillus anthrax and Yersinia pestis. This commentary reviews the production and evaluation of antigens made in plants in an attempt to develop vaccines against B. anthracis and Y. pestis.
authors.affiliation: Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology, Newark, Delaware 19711, USA.
authors.forename: Jessica A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Chichester
authors.forename: Vidadi
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Yusibov
mesh_terms: D000881:Anthrax / Q000517:prevention & control; D001428:Bacterial Vaccines / Q000096:biosynthesis; D017321:Clinical Trials, Phase I as Topic; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical; D006801:Humans; D010931:Plague Vaccine / Q000096:biosynthesis; D010944:Plants / Q000276:immunology*; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D022223:Vaccines, Subunit; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic
chemical_list: D001428:Bacterial Vaccines; D010931:Plague Vaccine; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D022223:Vaccines, Subunit; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic