A New Age in Antibody Production
After reading the article, Plant-Made Biologics, it is very important to point out that Nicotiana benthamiana plants perform more functions other than synthesize the desired antibodies. These Plant-Made Biologic (PMB) plants are being used today to mass-produce several vaccines that can help combat infectious diseases being transmitted from the Dengue, West Nile, and HIV viruses. In the article, I found out that researchers use the domain III of the West Nile Virus protein envelope as a "vaccine candidate" for the West Nile virus. Somehow the N. benthamiana plants are able to synthesize antigen proteins that can be used to test the structure of the newly developed receptors, that the pathogens possess. If any of you don't realize that in order for a pathogen such as a virus to hook up on the surface protein, the antigen, of a target host cell; the pathogen has to latch its receptor onto the target's antigens. These newly developed antigens are responsible for the development of new vaccines, because whenever a patient is given a vaccine that individual is given a sample of foreign antigens that causes the individual's immune system to develop immunity by producing antibodies against those foreign antigens. Not only this but the plant-derived domain III somehow are able to resist denaturation, allowing the protein envelope's structure to not change, which allows the function of the envelope to remain intact. However a problem I have read from the article to this is that the vaccines produced from the domain III protein envelope haven't been able to work in humans just yet. So far the plant-made vaccines are being administered in mice.
Armando, why are mice used in testing? Is their immune system similar to ours?
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