Abstract
Infectious diseases, also known as transmissible or communicable diseases, are caused by pathogens or parasites that spread in communities by direct contact with infected individuals or contaminated materials, through droplets and aerosols, or via vectors such as insects. Such diseases cause ~17% of all human deaths and their management and control places an immense burden on healthcare systems worldwide. Traditional approaches for the prevention and control of infectious diseases include vaccination programmes, hygiene measures and drugs that suppress the pathogen, treat the disease symptoms or attenuate aggressive reactions of the host immune system. The provision of vaccines and biologic drugs such as antibodies is hampered by the high cost and limited scalability of traditional manufacturing platforms based on microbial and animal cells, particularly in developing countries where infectious diseases are prevalent and poorly controlled. Molecular farming, which uses plants for protein expression, is a promising strategy to address the drawbacks of current manufacturing platforms. In this review article, we consider the potential of molecular farming to address healthcare demands for the most prevalent and important epidemic and pandemic diseases, focussing on recent outbreaks of high-mortality coronavirus infections and diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1901-1920 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Plant Biotechnology Journal |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2021 |
| MoE publication type | A2 Review article in a scientific journal |
Funding
The authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (project AGL2017-85377-R), the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (projects RTI2018-097613-B-I00 and PGC2018-097655-B-I00), the EU Horizon 2020 project Pharma-Factory (774078) and the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grups Consolidats 2017-SGR828), Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR), Departament d'Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya (PANDÈMIES 2020). Project LISBOA-01-0145-FEDER‐007660 (Microbiologia Molecular, Estrutural e Celular funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020 – Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) and by the FCT (Portugal) through the R&D Unit, UIDB/04551/2020 (GREEN-IT – Bioresources for Sustainability). UKIERI and the Hotung Foundation for sustained support of the Bharathiar University/St. George’s Univ. of London collaboration and the Molecular Immunology Unit at St. George’s Univ of London. The Max Planck Society, the EU Horizon 2020 project Newcotiana, 760331‐2) and a grant from the European Research Council (ERC-ADG-2014; grant agreement 669982) to RB. KMOC, RMT and STH acknowledge support from the InnCoCells project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 101000373. PSS, KAM, RF, and SN are partially supported by a CRAFT award (COVID‐19 Research Accelerator Funding Track) by the University of California Davis. KAM and SN were partially supported by NASA Space Technology Research (award number NNX17AJ31G) and by the Translational Research Institute through NASA (grant number NNX16AO69A). EMBRAPA (Brazilian Agricultural Corporation), INCT BioSyn (National Institute of Science and Technology in Synthetic Biology), CNPq, CAPES, Brazilian Ministry of Health, FAPDF and Universidade Católica de Brasília (UCB), Brasília, Brazil. BBSRC Grant BB/L020955/1, the JIC Strategic Programme Grant ‘Molecules from Nature – Enhanced Research Capacity’ (BBS/E/J/000PR9794), the John Innes Foundation and the Department of Health and Social Care using UK Aid funding managed by the BBSRC. The Austrian Science Fund FWF (project W1224). TTW Veni Grant 16740 from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. Research in the Daniell laboratory was supported by NIH grants R01 GM 63879, R01 107904, R01 HL 109442, R01 133191 and grants from Bayer, Novo Nordisk and Shire/Takeda. The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Department of Healthand Human Services, through the Science Moving TowArds Research Translation and Therapy (SMARTT) program contracts # HHSN268201600014C, HHSN268201600011C supported IND enabling regulatory, toxicology and pharmacokinetic studies.
Keywords
- COVID-19
- HIV/AIDS
- Molecular farming
- plant-made pharmaceuticals
- SARS-CoV-2
- Humans
- Communicable Diseases/epidemiology
- Pandemics/prevention & control
