Dengue virus E glycoprotein production in transgenic rice callus

Ma J, McDonald KA, Murad A, Nandi S, O’Keef B, Parthiban S, Paul MJ, Ponndorf D, Rech E, Rodrigues JC, Ruf S, Schillberg S, Schwestka J, Shah PS, Singh R, Stoger E, Twyman RM, Varghese IP, Vianna GR, Webster G, Wilbers RHP, Christou P, Oksman‐Caldentey K, Capell T. Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against infectious diseases in humans-part 2: Affordable drugs in edible plants for endemic and re-emerging diseases

The fight against infectious diseases often focuses on epidemics and pandemics, which demand urgent resources and command attention from the health authorities and media. However, the vast majority of deaths caused by infectious diseases occur in endemic zones, particularly in developing countries, placing a disproportionate burden on underfunded health systems and often requiring international interventions. The provision of vaccines and other biologics is hampered not only by the high cost and limited scalability of traditional manufacturing platforms based on microbial and animal cells, but also by challenges caused by distribution and storage, particularly in regions without a complete cold chain. In this review article, we consider the potential of molecular farming to address the challenges of endemic and re-emerging diseases, focusing on edible plants for the development of oral drugs. Key recent developments in this field include successful clinical trials based on orally delivered dried leaves of Artemisia annua against malarial parasite strains resistant to artemisinin combination therapy, the ability to produce clinical-grade protein drugs in leaves to treat infectious diseases and the long-term storage of protein drugs in dried leaves at ambient temperatures. Recent FDA approval of the first orally delivered protein drug encapsulated in plant cells to treat peanut allergy has opened the door for the development of affordable oral drugs that can be manufactured and distributed in remote areas without cold storage infrastructure and that eliminate the need for expensive purification steps and sterile delivery by injection.

Need of cost-effective vaccines in developing countries: What plant biotechnology can offer?

To treat current infectious diseases, different therapies are used that include drugs or vaccines or both. Currently, the world is facing an increasing problem of drug resistance from many pathogenic microorganisms. In majority of cases, when vaccines are used, formulations consist of live attenuated microorganisms. This poses an additional risk of infection in immunocompromised patients and people suffering from malnutrition in developing countries. Therefore, there is need to improve drug therapy as well as to develop next generation vaccines, in particular against infectious diseases with highest mortality rates. For patients in developing countries, costs related to treatments are one of the major hurdles to reduce the disease burden. In many cases, use of prophylactic vaccines can help to control the incidence of infectious diseases. In the present review, we describe some infectious diseases with high impact on health of people in low and middle income countries. We discuss the prospects of plants as alternative platform for the development of next-generation subunit vaccines that can be a cost-effective source for mass immunization of people in developing countries.