Production of the 42-kDa fragment of Plasmodium falciparum merozoite surface protein 1, a leading malaria vaccine antigen, in Arabidopsis thaliana seeds

• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7652.2010.00526.x
• Publication Date: 2010-04-26T01:24:07Z
• Authors: On Sun Lau; Danny W.-K. Ng; Wendy W.L. Chan; Sandra P. Chang; Samuel S.M. Sun
• Keywords: Merozoite surface protein

Malaria is widely associated with poverty, and a low-cost vaccine against malaria highly desirable for implementing comprehensive vaccination programmes in developing countries. Production of antigens plants promising approach, but its development has been hindered by poor expression the plant cells. In present study, we targeted seeds as production platform successfully expressed Plasmodium falciparum 42-kDa fragment merozoite surface protein 1 (MSP1₄₂), leading candidate, at high level transgenic Arabidopsis seeds. We overcame hurdles transcript instabilities MSP1₄₂ synthesizing plant-optimized cDNA either targeting recombinant to storage vacuoles or fusing it stable protein. An exceptional improvement expression, from an undetectable 5% total extractable protein, was achieved these combined strategies. Importantly, plant-derived maintains natural antigenicity can be recognized immune sera malaria-infected patients. Our results provide strong basis plant-based, vaccine.