title: Antigen Production in Plant to Tackle Infectious Diseases Flare Up: The Case of SARS.
abstract: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a dangerous infection with pandemic potential. It emerged in 2002 and its aetiological agent, the SARS Coronavirus (SARS-CoV), crossed the species barrier to infect humans, showing high morbidity and mortality rates. No vaccines are currently licensed for SARS-CoV and important efforts have been performed during the first outbreak to develop diagnostic tools. Here we demonstrate the transient expression in Nicotiana benthamiana of two important antigenic determinants of the SARS-CoV, the nucleocapsid protein (N) and the membrane protein (M) using a virus-derived vector or agro-infiltration, respectively. For the M protein, this is the first description of production in plants, while for plant-derived N protein we demonstrate that it is recognized by sera of patients from the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong in 2003. The availability of recombinant N and M proteins from plants opens the way to further evaluation of their potential utility for the development of diagnostic and protection/therapy tools to be quickly manufactured, at low cost and with minimal risk, to face potential new highly infectious SARS-CoV outbreaks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sustainability, Biotechnology Laboratory, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Olivia C
authors.initials: OC
authors.lastname: Demurtas
authors.affiliation: Department of Sustainability, Biotechnology Laboratory, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Massa
authors.affiliation: Department of Sustainability, Biomedical Technology Laboratory, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic DevelopmentRome, Italy; Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences, Università degli Studi di MilanoMilan, Italy.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Illiano
authors.affiliation: International Relations Office, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: De Martinis
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales HospitalHong Kong, China; Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Prince of Wales HospitalHong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Paul K S
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Department of Infectious, Parasitic and Immune-Mediated Diseases Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Di Bonito
authors.affiliation: Department of Sustainability, Biomedical Technology Laboratory, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Rosella
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Franconi
keywords: M protein; N protein; SARS-CoV; disease outbreaks; emerging infectious disease; plant expression; severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)