scholarly journals Plant-Based Vaccines: The Way Ahead?

Viruses ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Zacharie LeBlanc ◽  
Peter Waterhouse ◽  
Julia Bally

Severe virus outbreaks are occurring more often and spreading faster and further than ever. Preparedness plans based on lessons learned from past epidemics can guide behavioral and pharmacological interventions to contain and treat emergent diseases. Although conventional biologics production systems can meet the pharmaceutical needs of a community at homeostasis, the COVID-19 pandemic has created an abrupt rise in demand for vaccines and therapeutics that highlight the gaps in this supply chain’s ability to quickly develop and produce biologics in emergency situations given a short lead time. Considering the projected requirements for COVID-19 vaccines and the necessity for expedited large scale manufacture the capabilities of current biologics production systems should be surveyed to determine their applicability to pandemic preparedness. Plant-based biologics production systems have progressed to a state of commercial viability in the past 30 years with the capacity for production of complex, glycosylated, “mammalian compatible” molecules in a system with comparatively low production costs, high scalability, and production flexibility. Continued research drives the expansion of plant virus-based tools for harnessing the full production capacity from the plant biomass in transient systems. Here, we present an overview of vaccine production systems with a focus on plant-based production systems and their potential role as “first responders” in emergency pandemic situations.

Author(s):  
Ryota Hagihara ◽  
Shoto Ohno ◽  
Mikiro Hayashi ◽  
Kazuhiko Tabata ◽  
Hirofumi Endo

l-Theanine is a nonproteinogenic amino acid present almost exclusively in tea plants and is beneficial for human health. For industrial production, l-theanine is enzymatically or chemically synthesized from glutamine/glutamate (or a glutamine/glutamate derivative) and ethylamine. Ethylamine is extremely flammable and toxic, which complicates and increases the cost of operational procedures. To solve these problems, we developed an artificial biosynthetic pathway to produce l-theanine in the absence of supplemental ethylamine. For this purpose, we identified and selected the novel transaminase AAN70747 from Pseudomonas putida KT2440, which catalyzes the transamination of acetaldehyde to produce ethylamine, as well as γ-glutamylmethylamide synthetase AAY37316 from Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae B728a, which catalyzes the condensation of l-glutamate and ethylamine to produce l-theanine. Expressing these genes in Escherichia coli W3110S3GK and enhancing the production capacity of acetaldehyde and l-alanine achieved successful production of l-theanine without ethylamine supplementation. Furthermore, the deletion of ggt, which encodes γ-glutamyltranspeptidase (EC 2.3.2.2), achieved large-scale production of l-theanine by attenuating its decomposition. We show that an alanine decarboxylase-utilizing pathway represents a promising route for the fermentative production of l-theanine. To our knowledge, this is the first report of efficient methods to produce l-theanine in the absence of supplemental ethylamine. IMPORTANCE l-Theanine is widely used in food additives and dietary supplements. Industrial production of l-theanine uses the toxic and highly flammable precursor ethylamine, raising production costs. Here we used Escherichia coli to engineer two biosynthetic pathways that produce l-theanine from glucose and ammonia in the absence of supplemental ethylamine. This study establishes a foundation for safely and economically producing l-theanine.


2014 ◽  
Vol 50 (No. 2) ◽  
pp. 69-76
Author(s):  
T. Moravec ◽  
N. Čeřovská

There is an ever growing need for the use of recombinant proteins both in medicine and industry; however their widespread use is limited by the lack of production capacity. Transgenic plants offer the possibility to produce and deliver recombinant proteins on a large scale with low production costs and with minimal purification or enrichment requirements. Among crop plants, legumes have great potential as a protein production platform because of their naturally high protein content, nutritional value, independence of N-nutrition, pollen containment, available processing technology, storage stability etc. There have been several proof-of-principle attempts to produce large amounts of recombinant protein in seed of both soybean and pea, however, our knowledge of processes regulating the foreign protein production and deposition is still limited.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3S) ◽  
pp. 638-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine F. J. Meijerink ◽  
Marieke Pronk ◽  
Sophia E. Kramer

Purpose The SUpport PRogram (SUPR) study was carried out in the context of a private academic partnership and is the first study to evaluate the long-term effects of a communication program (SUPR) for older hearing aid users and their communication partners on a large scale in a hearing aid dispensing setting. The purpose of this research note is to reflect on the lessons that we learned during the different development, implementation, and evaluation phases of the SUPR project. Procedure This research note describes the procedures that were followed during the different phases of the SUPR project and provides a critical discussion to describe the strengths and weaknesses of the approach taken. Conclusion This research note might provide researchers and intervention developers with useful insights as to how aural rehabilitation interventions, such as the SUPR, can be developed by incorporating the needs of the different stakeholders, evaluated by using a robust research design (including a large sample size and a longer term follow-up assessment), and implemented widely by collaborating with a private partner (hearing aid dispensing practice chain).


2016 ◽  
pp. 151-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arend Wittenberg ◽  
Menno Roukema ◽  
Jan L.M. Struijs ◽  
Olaf van Baal

Suiker Unie focuses on a strong market position in Northwest Europe at the lowest possible production costs for sugar. The company tries to achieve this by giving attention to the entire production chain. An important pillar of this mission is sustainability. During the recent years Suiker Unie developed a Masterplan to prepare its factories for the new market situation after 2017. In line with Cosun’s strategy of profitable growth, scaling up production capacity of beet factories was defined as goal of this Masterplan. The ambition of reduction of production costs and sustainability (e.g. carbon-footprint) was translated into the challenging constraint to increase the capacity growth within the given steam supply and the actual odour and noise emissions. Based on a thorough bottleneck study a portfolio of measures for each factory is defined, grouped into debottlenecking, energy saving, optimization and environmental projects.


2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-16
Author(s):  
José Suárez-Varela ◽  
Miquel Ferriol-Galmés ◽  
Albert López ◽  
Paul Almasan ◽  
Guillermo Bernárdez ◽  
...  

During the last decade, Machine Learning (ML) has increasingly become a hot topic in the field of Computer Networks and is expected to be gradually adopted for a plethora of control, monitoring and management tasks in real-world deployments. This poses the need to count on new generations of students, researchers and practitioners with a solid background in ML applied to networks. During 2020, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has organized the "ITU AI/ML in 5G challenge", an open global competition that has introduced to a broad audience some of the current main challenges in ML for networks. This large-scale initiative has gathered 23 different challenges proposed by network operators, equipment manufacturers and academia, and has attracted a total of 1300+ participants from 60+ countries. This paper narrates our experience organizing one of the proposed challenges: the "Graph Neural Networking Challenge 2020". We describe the problem presented to participants, the tools and resources provided, some organization aspects and participation statistics, an outline of the top-3 awarded solutions, and a summary with some lessons learned during all this journey. As a result, this challenge leaves a curated set of educational resources openly available to anyone interested in the topic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oskar Englund ◽  
Pål Börjesson ◽  
Blas Mola-Yudego ◽  
Göran Berndes ◽  
Ioannis Dimitriou ◽  
...  

AbstractWithin the scope of the new Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, in coherence with other EU policies, new incentives are developed for farmers to deploy practices that are beneficial for climate, water, soil, air, and biodiversity. Such practices include establishment of multifunctional biomass production systems, designed to reduce environmental impacts while providing biomass for food, feed, bioenergy, and other biobased products. Here, we model three scenarios of large-scale deployment for two such systems, riparian buffers and windbreaks, across over 81,000 landscapes in Europe, and quantify the corresponding areas, biomass output, and environmental benefits. The results show that these systems can effectively reduce nitrogen emissions to water and soil loss by wind erosion, while simultaneously providing substantial environmental co-benefits, having limited negative effects on current agricultural production. This kind of beneficial land-use change using strategic perennialization is important for meeting environmental objectives while advancing towards a sustainable bioeconomy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Crosino ◽  
Elisa Moscato ◽  
Marco Blangetti ◽  
Gennaro Carotenuto ◽  
Federica Spina ◽  
...  

AbstractShort chain chitooligosaccharides (COs) are chitin derivative molecules involved in plant-fungus signaling during arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) interactions. In host plants, COs activate a symbiotic signalling pathway that regulates AM-related gene expression. Furthermore, exogenous CO application was shown to promote AM establishment, with a major interest for agricultural applications of AM fungi as biofertilizers. Currently, the main source of commercial COs is from the shrimp processing industry, but purification costs and environmental concerns limit the convenience of this approach. In an attempt to find a low cost and low impact alternative, this work aimed to isolate, characterize and test the bioactivity of COs from selected strains of phylogenetically distant filamentous fungi: Pleurotus ostreatus, Cunninghamella bertholletiae and Trichoderma viride. Our optimized protocol successfully isolated short chain COs from lyophilized fungal biomass. Fungal COs were more acetylated and displayed a higher biological activity compared to shrimp-derived COs, a feature that—alongside low production costs—opens promising perspectives for the large scale use of COs in agriculture.


2008 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 71-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.A. Woolliams ◽  
O. Matika ◽  
J. Pattison

SummaryLivestock production faces major challenges through the coincidence of major drivers of change, some with conflicting directions. These are:1. An unprecedented global change in demands for traditional livestock products such as meat, milk and eggs.2. Large changes in the demographic and regional distribution of these demands.3. The need to reduce poverty in rural communities by providing sustainable livelihoods.4. The possible emergence of new agricultural outputs such as bio-fuels making a significant impact upon traditional production systems.5. A growing awareness of the need to reduce the environmental impact of livestock production.6. The uncertainty in the scale and impact of climate change. This paper explores these challenges from a scientific perspective in the face of the large-scale and selective erosion of our animal genetic resources, and concludes thai there is a stronger and more urgent need than ever before to secure the livestock genetic resources available to humankind through a comprehensive global conservation programme.


2021 ◽  
pp. 037957212098250
Author(s):  
Jennifer K. Foley ◽  
Kristina D. Michaux ◽  
Bho Mudyahoto ◽  
Laira Kyazike ◽  
Binu Cherian ◽  
...  

Background: Micronutrient deficiencies affect over one quarter of the world’s population. Biofortification is an evidence-based nutrition strategy that addresses some of the most common and preventable global micronutrient gaps and can help improve the health of millions of people. Since 2013, HarvestPlus and a consortium of collaborators have made impressive progress in the enrichment of staple crops with essential micronutrients through conventional plant breeding. Objective: To review and highlight lessons learned from multiple large-scale delivery strategies used by HarvestPlus to scale up biofortification across different country and crop contexts. Results: India has strong public and private sector pearl millet breeding programs and a robust commercial seed sector. To scale-up pearl millet, HarvestPlus established partnerships with public and private seed companies, which facilitated the rapid commercialization of products and engagement of farmers in delivery activities. In Nigeria, HarvestPlus stimulated the initial acceptance and popularization of vitamin A cassava using a host of creative approaches, including “crowding in” delivery partners, innovative promotional programs, and development of intermediate raw material for industry and novel food products. In Uganda, orange sweet potato (OSP) is a traditional subsistence crop. Due to this, and the lack of formal seed systems and markets, HarvestPlus established a network of partnerships with community-based nongovernmental organizations and vine multipliers to popularize and scale-up delivery of OSP. Conclusions: Impact of biofortification ultimately depends on the development of sustainable markets for biofortified seeds and products. Results illustrate the need for context-specific, innovative solutions to promote widespread adoption.


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