PLANT DERIVED VACCINE PRODUCTION FOR
THERAPEUTIC USE
Subunit vaccines are commercially used in genetically engineered
bacterial, yeast or mammalian cells by selectively incorporating recombinant plant
viruses (the gene of interest) as transient expression vectors in infected plants into the
plant nucleus or chloroplast that can transform higher plants, such as potato, tobacco,
tomato and banana, into bioreactors for the production of subunit edible vaccines for oral
or parental administration. There are wide and numerous applications of transgenic plants
as protein production systems. The first demonstration of expression of vaccine antigen
within plants occurred in the 1990’s, which expressed the Streptococcus mutans surface
protein antigen A (SpaA) in tobacco plant. When delivered orally to mice and humans,
