Expression of chimeric HCV peptide in transgenic tobacco plants infected with recombinant alfalfa mosaic virus for development of a plant-derived vaccine against HCV

Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the major etiologic agent of blood transfusion–associated and sporadic non-A non-B 
hepatitis affecting more than 180 million worldwide. Vaccine development for HCV has been difficult and there is no 
vaccine or effective therapy against this virus. In this paper, we describe the development of an experimental plant
derived subunit vaccine against HCV. Our subunit vaccine originates from a consensus HCV-HVR1 epitope (R9) that 
antigenically mimics many natural HVR1 variants. This HVR1 sequence was cloned into the open reading frame of a 
plant virus, Alfalfa Mosaic Virus (ALMV) coat protein (CP) . The chimeric ALMV RNA4 containing sequence-encoding 
R9 epitope was introduced into full-length infectious ALMV-RNA3 that was utilized as an expression vector. The 
recombinant chimeric protein is expressed in transgenic tobacco plants (P12) expressing ALMV RNA1 and 2. Plant
derived HVR1/ALMV-CP reacted with HVR1 and/or ALMV-CP specific monoclonal antibodies and immune sera from 
individuals infected with HCV. Using plant-virus based transient expression to produce this unique chimeric antigen 
will facilitate the development and production of an experimental HCV vaccine. A plant derived recombinant HCV 
vaccine can potentially reduce expenses normally associated with production and delivery of conventional vaccine.