Tobacco vaccine
Influenza vaccine obtained from GM tobacco has been tested
Sergey Vasiliev, Naked Science
The new flu vaccine has successfully passed phase III clinical trials. Unlike all other analogues, the drug was first obtained with the help of genetically modified plants. A report on its testing is published in The Lancet (Ward et al., Efficacy, immunogenicity, and safety of a plant-derived, quadrivalent, virus-like particle influenza vaccine in adults (18-64 years) and older adults (≥65 years): two multicentre, randomized phase 3 trials).
Virologists have to annually identify new strains of influenza that can cause another pandemic, and produce new vaccines containing weakened virus particles or fragments thereof. For mass production, chicken eggs are most often used, infecting them with influenza and then isolating the necessary proteins from them. Other animals, including sharks, often go under the knife.
A new, more humane and potentially convenient approach is being developed by the pharmaceutical company Medicago in Canada. Scientists use Australian tobacco plants Nicotiana benthamiana, which artificially introduced individual genes of viral proteins.
GM tobacco plants of N.benthamiana in the laboratory.
The "tobacco" vaccine developed against influenza strains that circulated in the 2017-2018 season was tested on more than 10,000 adult (18 to 64 years old) volunteers from Eurasia and North America. The authors concluded that the drug provides "generally the same" level of protection against the development of the disease as conventional vaccines.
At the next stage, almost 13 thousand elderly volunteers over the age of 65 participated in the trials. As one might expect, their immune response turned out to be weaker, but it is noticeable enough for the body to cope better with the flu – and again "quite at the level" of standard drugs.
The work of Canadian scientists is also devoted to the review of the First human efficacy study of a plant-derived influenza vaccine, published in the same issue of The Lancet by an infectious disease specialist from Imperial College London, John Tregoning. "The field of vaccines produced in plants has made remarkable progress since viral proteins were synthesized in plants for the first time 28 years ago," the scientist writes. – Now, for the first time, the vaccine obtained in this way has been tested on humans. This is an important milestone for the technology."
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