Symptoms on virus-infected plants are often very specific to the given virus. The molecular mechanisms involved in viral symptom induction have been extensively studied, but are still poorly understood. Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) Y satellite RNA (Y-sat) is a non-coding subviral RNA and modifies the typical symptom induced by CMV in specific hosts; Y-sat causes a bright yellow mosaic on its nat...

We report the production of hGM-CSF cytokine in leaves of industrial tobacco cultivars DH-17 and DH-27 by using Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression. We prove the concept that very high biomass industrial tobacco plants are suitable platforms for rapid, low cost production of foreign proteins. Successful transient expression of the GM-CSF was achieved in less than three months, opening t...

Background: Defensin peptide isolated from plants are often heterogeneous in length, sequence and structure, but they are mostly small, cationic and amphipathic. Plant defensins exhibit broad-spectrum antibacterial and antifungal activities against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, fungi and etc. Plant defensins also play an important role in innate immunity, such as he...

BACKGROUND During a global influenza pandemic, the vaccine requirements of developing countries can surpass their supply capabilities, if these exist at all, compelling them to rely on developed countries for stocks that may not be available in time. There is thus a need for developing countries in general to produce their own pandemic and possibly seasonal influenza vaccines. Here we describe ...

the influenza a virus is of global concern for the poultry industry, especially the h5 subtype as it has the potential to become highly pathogenic for poultry and mankind. recently, plant expression systems have gained interest as an alternative for the production of vaccine antigens. the goal of the present study was to investigate the possibility of expressing the ha1 protein in nicotiana tab...

Plants offer tremendous advantages as cost-effective and safe platforms for the large-scale production of vaccines and other therapeutic proteins. Plant-derived vaccines represent a means by which to enhance vaccine coverage for children in developing countries, and can be administered orally to elicit a mucosal immune response. Plantderived vaccines possess the dual advantage of preventing the...