title: Chloroplasts as expression platforms for plant-produced vaccines.
abstract: Production of recombinant subunit vaccines from genes incorporated in the plastid genome is advantageous because of the attainable expression level due to high transgene copy number and the absence of gene silencing; biocontainment as a consequence of maternal inheritance of plastids and no transgene presence in the pollen; and expression of multiple transgenes in prokaryotic-like operons. We discuss the core technology of plastid transformation in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a unicellular alga, and Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco), a flowering plant species, and demonstrate the utility of the technology for the production of recombinant vaccine antigens.
authors.affiliation: CNR-IGV, Institute of Plant Genetics, Portici, Italy. teodoro.cardi@entecra.it
authors.forename: Teodoro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Cardi
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lenzi
authors.forename: Pal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Maliga
mesh_terms: D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D016825:Chlamydomonas reinhardtii / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D002736:Chloroplasts / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D015870:Gene Expression; D006801:Humans; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D014026:Nicotiana / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic / Q000096:biosynthesis* / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic