Plant-Based Vaccines: The Way Ahead?

Abstract

Severe virus outbreaks are occurring more often and spreading faster and further than ever. Preparedness plans based on lessons learned from past epidemics can guide behavioral and pharmacological interventions to contain and treat emergent diseases. Although conventional biologics production systems can meet the pharmaceutical needs of a community at homeostasis, the COVID-19 pandemic has created an abrupt rise in demand for vaccines and therapeutics that highlight the gaps in this supply chain’s ability to quickly develop and produce biologics in emergency situations given a short lead time. Considering the projected requirements for COVID-19 vaccines and the necessity for expedited large scale manufacture the capabilities of current biologics production systems should be surveyed to determine their applicability to pandemic preparedness. Plant-based biologics production systems have progressed to a state of commercial viability in the past 30 years with the capacity for production of complex, glycosylated, “mammalian compatible” molecules in a system with comparatively low production costs, high scalability, and production flexibility. Continued research drives the expansion of plant virus-based tools for harnessing the full production capacity from the plant biomass in transient systems. Here, we present an overview of vaccine production systems with a focus on plant-based production systems and their potential role as “first responders” in emergency pandemic situations.

Covid-19 ile mücadelede bitkilerin rolü

“…Örneğin, 2009 yılında yaşanan influenza A (H1N1) salgını sırasında aşı üretimi amacıyla kullanılan yumurta-bazlı üretim teknikleri yavaş kalmış ve aşının paylaşımı ve dağıtımında yaşanan sorunlar sebebiyle ilk dalganın atlatılmasında başarısız olunmuştur. Ya da aşı üretimlerinde kullanılan MDCK (Madin-Darby Canine Kidney) ve EHE hücre hatları, SARS-CoV-1 ve SARS-CoV-2 virüslerinin replikasyonuna izin vermediği için Covid-19 pandemisinde kullanılamamışlardır [25]. Ayrıca inaktif aşıların kullanımının ise zayıf immun yanıta sebep olduğu belirlenmiştir [24].…”

“…Böcek hücre hatları ve bitkiler de bu hatlara dahildirler. Canlı hücre içermemesi sebebiyle bu üretim tekniği; daha güvenli olmasının yanı sıra, konukçu çeşitliliğinin de bulunması ölçeklenebilmesinde çok önemli avantajlar sağlamaktadır [25].…”

“…Bu kriterlerden ilki; yüksek muhafaza oranına sahip, kendi kendine yeterli bitki bazlı farmasötik üretim tesisi geliştirmektir. İkincisi; bir tesis inşa etmek ve işletmeye almak, bir aday protein antijeni geliştirmek ve ticari ölçekte bir hedef protein sunarak işlem sağlamlığını göstermektir ve sonuncusu ise; bu üretim prosesini 18 aydan daha kısa bir zaman aralığında tamamlamaktır [31] [25].…”

Medicinal Plants: Guests and Hosts in the Heterologous Expression of High-Value Products

“…The transient plant expression system can be employed for the rapid production of recombinant proteins at high yields to meet the sudden demand for the production of emergency vaccines during viral outbreaks [95]. Therefore, N. benthamiana can also become a promising host for vaccine manufacturing to fight the COVID-19 pandemic [96].…”

Plant-Based COVID-19 Vaccines: Current Status, Design, and Development Strategies of Candidate Vaccines

“…Recombinant DNA technology-based production has dominated COVID-19 vaccine development, narrowing the whole virus vaccine to 18% of the total vaccines in clinical trials (Figure 1). Plant-based production has received immense attention among vaccine researchers as a potential alternative to rapidly produce affordable COVID-19 vaccines and other therapeutics [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Plant-based production offers several advantages, such as low cost, rapidity, scalability, and safety.…”