History of Vaccine Proteins Produced in Plants

In the poorer countries of the world, where infectious diseases remain the primary cause of death, expense, inadequate health-care infrastructure, and lack of refrigeration limit the utility of vaccines. In these locations, entry of virtually all of these infectious diseases occurs through the host s mucosal surfaces in the gut, and respiratory and reproductive tracts. In 1992, an assembly of philanthropic organizations, in conjunction with the World Health Organization, set about the task of establishing the Children s Vaccine Initiative, whose focus is to advance the development of new technologies that will make novel oral vaccines accessible and 

In 1990, the first plant-made vaccines were performed via expression of Streptococcus mutans surface protein A in transgenic tobacco, followed by oral immunization of mice with the same plant material (Fischer and Emans, 2000). This transgenic plant material was later shown to successfully induce an antibody response through a demonstration that serum from immunized mice could react with intact S. mutans. Plants were also developed that expressed Escherichia coli enterotoxin B subunit (LT-B) and that exhibited successful inducement of both mucosal and serum antibody responses (Tacket, 2005). These initial experiments led to a cornucopia of studies involving generations of plant-made vaccines and therapeutic proteins and their applications in medicine. 

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