Vegetables as a factory of bio pharmaceuticals: Edible vaccines

Edible vaccine is an application of molecular farming which refers to protein products with clinical or veterinary applications produced in recombinant plant systems. The antigens or therapeutics are expressed in plant tissues, from which the plant tissue can be processed into a form that can be consumed orally. The major advantage of plant biopharmaceuticals over other traditional vaccine production systems is reduced manufacturing cost and its safe delivery. Huge Fermenters and bioreactors are replaced with greenhouses or plants are grown in isolation or is even grown in the field but only with appropriate biological containment of foreign genes, such as maternal inheritance or male sterility, or expression in vegetative tissues with harvest before appearance of any reproductive structure. The down streaming cost is also reduced. As it is delivered orally, edible vaccines and biopharmaceuticals have the advantage that there is no need for expensive purification systems and other expenses associated with cold storage, transportation and sterile delivery. Edible vaccines possess both mucosal and systemic immunity. The plant transformation after the development of the transformed plants is validated through various methods viz., PCR, Southern blot, Northern Blot and Western Blot and ELISA. After validation using these methods plants are multiplied.