Plant Molecular Pharming For Livestock And Poultry

Plants are exploited as bioreactors for the cost-effective production of pharmaceuticals, predominantly for the expression and accumulation of antigenic proteins, to be used as vaccines for livestock and poultry. Due to the high body mass of large animals and large population of poultry and other birds, a larger quantity of vaccines is needed continuously. It increases the production costs of vaccines for these animals. Under high biomass production ability, plants represent promising biofactory with added advantages of pathogen-free production of desired proteins in bulk quantities. Hence, plant-based transient, as well as stable expression systems, have been exceedingly applied to express immunogenic proteins. We have been using various plants like soybean and Trifolium to produce edible vaccines for poultry and livestock, respectively. Here we have reviewed various types of vaccines with a special focus on their plant-based expression with examples of Infectious Bursal Disease (IBD), New Castle Disease (ND), and Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).

Keywords: Biopharming, Molecular pharming, IBD, ND, FMD, Vaccine, Edible vaccine, DNA vaccine, Subunit vaccine.