VATIS UPDATE Article

In a breakthrough, scientists from independent research organisation John Innes Centre (JIC), the United Kingdom, have used plants to produce a new vaccine against the polio virus, a finding which can pave the way for global eradication of the disease. The novel vaccine was produced with a method that uses virus-like particles (VLPs) – non-pathogenic mimics of the polio virus which are grown in plants.

Genes that carry information to produce VLPs are infiltrated into the plant tissues. The host plant then reproduces large quantities of them using its own protein expression mechanisms. “This is an incredible collaboration involving plant science, animal virology and structural biology. The question for us now is how to scale it up – we don’t want to stop at a lab technique,” said George Lomonossoff, at JIC.

Laboratory tests demonstrated that the polio virus mimics provided animals with immunity from the disease paving the way for human vaccines to be produced by plants on a major scale with the input of pharmaceutical industry collaborators. According to the researchers, the successful development of VLPs not only holds promise for the production of vaccines for polio but it could also become a frontline diagnostic resource in producing vaccines against other viral outbreaks.