Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against infectious diseases in humans - part 2: endemic and re-emerging diseases

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2021-04-06
Author
He, Wenshu
Baysal, Can
Lobato, Maria
Huang, Xin
Alvarez, Derry
Zhu, Changfu
Armario-Najera, Victoria
Blanco Perera, Aamaya
Cerda, Pedro
Saba-Mayoral, Andrea
Sobrino-Mengual, Guillermo
Vargheese, Ashwin
Abranches, Rita
Abreu, Isabel Alexandra
Balamurugan, Shanmugaraj
Bock, Ralph
Buyel, Johannes F.
Cunha, Nicolau B. da
Daniell, Henry
Faller, Roland
Folgado, André
Gowtham, Iyappan
Häkkinen, Suvi
Kumar, Shashi
Sathish Kumar, Ramalingam
Lacorte, Cristiano
Lomonossoff, George P.
Luís, Ines M.
Ma, Julian K-C
McDonald, Karen A.
Murad, Andre
Nandi, Somen
O'Keef, Barry
Parthiban, Subramanian
Paul, Mathew J.
Ponndorf, Daniel
Rech, Elibio
Rodrigues, Julio C. M.
Ruf, Stephanie
Schillberg, Stefan
Schwestka, Jennifer
Shah, Priya S.
Singh, Rahul
Stoger, Eva
Twyman, Richard M.
Varghese, Inchakalody P.
Vianna, Giovanni R.
Webster, Gina
Wilbers, Ruud H. P.
Christou, Paul
Oksman-Caldentey, Kirsi-Marja
Capell Capell, Teresa
Suggested citation
He, Wenshu; Baysal, Can; Lobato, Maria; Huang, Xin; Alvarez, Derry; Zhu, Changfu; ... Capell Capell, Teresa. (2021) . Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against infectious diseases in humans - part 2: endemic and re-emerging diseases. Plant Biotechnology Journal, 2021, vol. 19, p. 1921-1936. https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.13658.
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Abstract
The fight against infectious diseases often focuses on epidemics and pandemics, which demand urgent resources and command attention from the health authorities and media. However, the vast majority of deaths caused by infectious diseases occur in endemic zones, particularly in developing countries, placing a disproportionate burden on underfunded health systems and often requiring international interventions. The provision of vaccines and other biologics is hampered not only by the high cost and limited scalability of traditional manufacturing platforms based on microbial and animal cells, but also by challenges caused by distribution and storage, particularly in regions without a complete cold chain. In this review article, we consider the potential of molecular farming to address the challenges of endemic and re-emerging diseases, focusing on edible plants for the development of oral drugs. Key recent developments in this field include successful clinical trials based on orally delivered dried leaves of Artemisia annua against malarial parasite strains resistant to artemisinin combination therapy, the ability to produce clinical-grade protein drugs in leaves to treat infectious diseases and the long-term storage of protein drugs in dried leaves at ambient temperatures. Recent FDA approval of the first orally delivered protein drug encapsulated in plant cells to treat peanut allergy has opened the door for the development of affordable oral drugs that can be manufactured and distributed in remote areas without cold storage infrastructure and that eliminate the need for expensive purification steps and sterile delivery by injection.
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/72049
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.13658
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Plant Biotechnology Journal, 2021, vol. 19, p. 1921-1936
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cc-by (c) He, Wenshu et al., 2021
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as cc-by (c) He, Wenshu et al., 2021