Abstract
Measles remains a significant problem in both the developed and developing world, and new measles vaccination strategies need to be developed. This paper examines the strategy of utilizing transgenic plants expressing a measles antigen for the development of an oral sub-unit measles vaccine. A 1.8 kb fragment encompassing the coding region of the measles virus hemagglutinin (H) protein was cloned into a plant expression cassette. Three different expression constructs were tested: pBinH (H gene alone), pBinH/KDEL (addition of a C-terminal endoplasmic reticulum-retention sequence SEKDEL) and pBinSP/H/KDEL (further addition of an authentic N-terminal plant signal peptide). The highest levels of recombinant H protein production were observed in plants transformed with pBinH/KDEL. Mice inoculated intraperitoneally with transgenic plant derived recombinant H protein produced serum anti-H protein antibodies that neutralized the measles virus (MV) in vitro. Mice gavaged with transgenic tobacco leaf extracts also developed serum H protein-specific antibodies with neutralizing activity against MV in vitro. These results indicate that the plant-derived measles H protein is immunogenic when administered orally and that, with further development, oral vaccination utilizing transgenic plants may become a viable approach to measles vaccine development.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2163-2171 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Vaccine |
Volume | 19 |
Issue number | 15-16 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published or Issued - 28 Feb 2001 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Measles
- Neutralizing antibodies
- Oral
- Plant-derived vaccine
- Virus hemagglutinin protein
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Molecular Medicine
- General Immunology and Microbiology
- General Veterinary
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
- Infectious Diseases