Plant Plastid Engineering

Wani, Shabir H.; Haider, Nadia; Kumar, Hitesh; Singh, N.B.

, Chebolu and Daniell [117] achieved a stable expression of Gal/GalNAc lectin of Entamoeba histolytica in transgenic chloroplasts and immunogenicity in mice towards vaccine development for amoebiasis. Shao et al. [118] reported the expression of the structural protein E2 of classical swine fever virus (CSFV), which has been shown to carry critical epitopes CFSV E2 gene in tobacco chloroplasts. In another study on tobacco, plastid transformation of the high-biomass tobacco variety `Maryland Mammoth` has been assessed by McCabe et al. [119] as a production platform for the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) p24 antigen. Similarly, Meyers et al. 2008 [120] revealed the usefulness of plastid signal peptides in enhancing the production of recombinant proteins meant for use as vaccines. Transgenic plastids were also proved efficient for high-yield production of the vaccinia virus envelope protein A27L in plant cellsdagger by Rigano et al. [121] , who revealed that chloroplasts are an attractive production vehicle for the expression of OPV subunit vaccines. Very recently, Youm et al. [122] were able to produce the human beta-site APP cleaving enzyme (BACE) via transformation of tobacco plastids. The authors argued that the successful production of plastid-based BACE protein has the potential for developing a plant-based vaccine against Alzheimer disease. Because recombinant extra domain A from fibronectin (EDA) could be used as an adjuvant for vaccine development, [104] aimed to express EDA from the tobacco plastome as a promising strategy in molecular farming. Tobacco plastids transformation was also evaluated by Lentz et al. [123] for the production of a highly immunogenic epitope containing amino acid residues 135-160 of the structural protein VP1 of the foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV). The authors concluded that this technology allows the production of large quantities of immunogenic proteins.