Biotech Updates

Pea-Derived Vaccine Against Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease

May 22, 2009

Rabbit hemorrhagic disease (RHD) is an extremely fatal, viral disease of wild and domesticated rabbits. First isolated in China, the disease causes high economic losses in rabbit meat production and has dramatically reduced the wild rabbit population. Vaccines against RHD, containing the RHD virus capsid protein VP60, are commercially produced from the liver of experimentally infected rabbits. Although plant-based expression systems of RHD vaccine have been reported, the low expression level and insufficient immunogenic potency of plant-derived RHD virus antigen still hamper its practical use.

A team of researchers from Canada and Germany has developed pea plants accumulating high levels of highly immunogenic VP60. The researchers fused the VP60 antigen with the cholera toxin B subunit (CTB) to increase its immunogenicity. Rabbits immunized with pea-derived VP60-CTB fusion showed anti-VP60-specific antibodies, similar to rabbits immunized with commercially available vaccines. They also survived RHD virus challenge.

The paper published by the Plant Biotechnology Journal is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7652.2009.00422.x