Opportunities and challenges for plant-based vaccines

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a move towards developing subunit vaccines whereby linear immunogenic epitopes of a pathogen elicit production of antibodies. A novel approach for developing subunit vaccines has emerged as a result of genetic engineering technology: use of plants as vehicles for developing new products. As the technology to produce vaccines in plants goes through the regulatory pathway and demonstrates its economic feasibility, it may also overcome public-perception concerns that have dogged agricultural biotechnology in the past decade.