Abstract
Vaccines are widely used in the whole word. The death rate caused by the infectious organisms has been greatly reduced by the use of vaccines. However traditional vaccines have side-effects. Recently a newer approach to overcome the problems of the traditional vaccines has emerged. Edible vaccines can be better alternatives to the traditional vaccines as they can solve all the problems associated with traditional vaccines. For the production of edible vaccines gene of interest is selected and is inserted into the appropriate plant. The resultant plants called the transgenic plants are then induced to produce the desired protein. Edible vaccines are developed to provide oral as well as symmetric immunity. This review …show more content…
Charles Arntzen, with Hugh Mason and their colleagues made attempts to express Hepatitis B virus in tobacco plants .Later on, by the fusion of two plant lines multicomponent vaccines were developed. These second generation vaccines commonly called multicomponent vaccines providing a better approach for the treatment of various diseases.
Types of Vaccines
Vaccines are produced by dead or weekend microorganisms or these are the purified products of them. There are four different types of vaccines that were produced by traditional methods.
Live attenuated vaccines these vaccines contain live microorganisms and are synthesized against asymptomatic infection e.g. vaccines against mumps and measles. Live attenuated vaccines may cause side effects as compared to the other types of vaccines because these contain live or weekend microorganisms.
Inactivated vaccines these are also called killed vaccines contain dead microorganisms. These vaccines have fewer side effects than the live attenuated vaccines e.g. vaccines against flue, plague and cholera.
Toxoid these include inactivated toxic compounds e.g. vaccines against tetanus and …show more content…
Gene of interest is inserted into the desired plant. This process in called transformation and the plants produced as a result of the transformation are called transgenic plants.
One of the key factors that define success of potential edible vaccines is the selection of important epitope region(s) from the pathogen of interest. Gene of interest which codes for the antigen and the expression system should be compatible with the selected plant.
For the production of plant based vaccines edible parts of different plants are mostly utilized. Fruits like banana cereals like rice and leaves of tobacco and tubers like potatoes and tomatoes have been greatly used for obtaining the high levels of antigenic proteins. Selection criteria of plants for producing edible vaccines depend on different factors. Usually plants are selected on the basis of their low cost, ease of harvest, easy purification of the antibodies stored in the seeds and long term storage. Plants whose products are consumed without cooking are mostly preferable to avoid the degradation of antigen by