Even vaccinated potatoes!

2001/10/23 Agirre Ruiz de Arkaute, Aitziber - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Genetika
• Medikuntza

The development of antimicrobial vaccines by itself has difficulties, but also, once obtained, it does not have much value if the vaccine synthesis is very costly. There have been different alternatives of cover, being one of them the use of plants and animals as a factory of drugs. It has often been mentioned that in this way they will be accessible to all.

For this reason, geneticist Hugh Mason and his team have developed potatoes that generate antigens of hepatitis B. Thus, when eating potatoes, the immune system will form antibodies against these antigens. If from now on a real virus entered, the body would already own the antibodies that knew it and destroy it immediately after its introduction. They have already begun testing with humans and potato eaters have seen with joy that they have created an adequate level of antibody against hepatitis B.

In this type of vaccines it is important that the plant generates sufficient antigens, since otherwise it will not give sufficient immune response in humans. But it is not the only difficulty: we must protect the antigens so that they do not decrease in digestion. To do this, along with the genes responsible for the formation of antigens, it is necessary to introduce other genes into plant cells that constitute structures similar to viruses. In this way, the antigens will appear protected within the viral particle, greatly increasing the efficacy of the vaccine.

However, the procedure used to increase the quantity and durability of the antigen has seen that it prevents the growth of plants and, in case of growth, reduces the formation of tubers. Therefore, it is being tried that the antigen begins to synthesize in the late phase of the development of the plant, that is, when the plant has grown.