Farming of Plant-Based Veterinary Vaccines and Their Applications for Disease Prevention in Animals

Table 1

Various applications of plant-based expression system and key events related to their development.

Product	Plant host(s)	Importance	References
Human pharmaceutical proteins
Human interferon-α	Turnip	First recombinant plant-derived pharmaceutical proteins.	[7]
Human serum albumin	Tobacco, potato	Plant-derived proteins identical to the authentic human proteins.	[9]
Antibodies
Mouse immunoglobulin	Tobacco	First plant-derived antibody showing the ability of plants to assemble heterologous biomolecules.	[8]
Antibody against hepatitis B	Tobacco	First commercialized plant-derived antibody used for vaccine purification in Cuba.	[10]
Antibody against Streptococcus mutans (CaroRx)	Tobacco	EU-approved medical device for prevention of tooth decay.	[6, 11]
Industrial and agricultural recombinant enzymes
Avidin	Maize	Plant-derived products on the market.	[12]
β-glucuronidase	Maize		[13]
Trypsin	Maize		[14]
Vaccine antigens- human use
Hepatitis B antigen	Tobacco	Plant-made HBsAg particles antigenically and physically similar to HBsAg particles derived from human serum and recombinant yeast.	[15]
	Lettuce, lupin	Specific antibody responses in human volunteers fed with transgenic lettuce.	[16]
	Potato	Increased specific serum immune response when given orally as a booster to vaccinated human volunteers.	[17]
Escherichia coli LT-B	Potato	First proof of concept for edible plant-derived vaccines that conferred protection to mice upon oral feeding.	[18]
	Maize	Specific serum and mucosal antibody responses in human volunteers ingested transgenic corn germ meal.	[19]
Norwalk virus	Tobacco, potato	Specific serum and mucosal antibody responses in mice fed orally with transgenic plants. Phase I clinical trials completed.	[20]
Vaccine antigens- veterinary use
Newcastle disease virus HN proteins	Tobacco suspension cell culture	First USDA-approved plant-derived veterinary vaccine.	[21]