Recombinant plants provide a new approach to the production of bacterial polysaccharide for vaccines

Smith, Claire M., Fry, Stephen C., Gough, Kevin C., Patel, Alexandra J.F., Glenn, Sarah, Goldrick, Marie, Roberts, Ian S., Whitelam, Garry C. and Andrew, Peter W. (2014) Recombinant plants provide a new approach to the production of bacterial polysaccharide for vaccines. PLoS ONE, 9 (2). e88144/1-e88144/8. ISSN 1932-6203

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Abstract

Bacterial polysaccharides have numerous clinical or industrial uses. Recombinant plants could offer the possibility of producing bacterial polysaccharides on a large scale and free of contaminating bacterial toxins and antigens. We investigated the feasibility of this proposal by cloning and expressing the gene for the type 3 synthase (cps3S) of Streptococcus pneumoniae in Nicotinia tabacum, using the pCambia2301 vector and Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated gene transfer. In planta the recombinant synthase polymerised plant-derived UDP-glucose and UDP-glucuronic acid to form type 3 polysaccharide. Expression of the cps3S gene was detected by RT-PCR and production of the pneumococcal polysaccharide was detected in tobacco leaf extracts by double immunodiffusion, Western blotting and high-voltage paper electrophoresis. Because it is used a component of anti-pneumococcal vaccines, the immunogenicity of the plant-derived type 3 polysaccharide was tested. Mice immunised with extracts from recombinant plants were protected from challenge with a lethal dose of pneumococci in a model of pneumonia and the immunised mice had significantly elevated levels of serum anti-pneumococcal polysaccharide antibodies. This study provides the proof of the principle that bacterial polysaccharide can be successfully synthesised in plants and that these recombinant polysaccharides could be used as vaccines to protect against life-threatening infections.

Item Type: Article
RIS ID: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/723661
Schools/Departments: University of Nottingham, UK > Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Veterinary Medicine and Science
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088144
Depositing User: Gough, Kevin
Date Deposited: 24 Sep 2015 13:01
Last Modified: 04 May 2020 16:43
URI: https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/30244

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