Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Infection and Immunity, September 2001, p. 5786-5793, Vol. 69, No. 9
Departments of
Microbiology,1 Plant
Agriculture,2 and
Pathobiology,3 University of Guelph,
Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1
Received 20 February 2001/Returned for modification 1 May
2001/Accepted 25 May 2001
Development of vaccines against bovine pneumonia pasteurellosis, or
shipping fever, has focused mainly on Mannheimia
haemolytica A1 leukotoxin (Lkt). In this study, the feasibility
of expressing Lkt in a forage plant for use as an edible vaccine was
investigated. Derivatives of the M. haemolytica Lkt in
which the hydrophobic transmembrane domains were removed were made.
Lkt66 retained its immunogenicity and was capable of
eliciting an antibody response in rabbits that recognized and
neutralized authentic Lkt. Genes encoding a shorter Lkt derivative,
Lkt50, fused to a modified green fluorescent protein (mGFP5), were
constructed for plant transformation. Constructs were screened
by Western immunoblot analysis for their ability to express the fusion
protein after agroinfiltration in tobacco. The fusion construct
pBlkt50-mgfp5, which employs the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter
for transcription, was selected and introduced into white clover by
Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated
transformation. Transgenic lines of white clover were recovered, and
expression of Lkt50-GFP was monitored and confirmed by laser
confocal microscopy and Western immunoblot analysis. Lkt50-GFP
was found to be stable in clover tissue after drying of the plant
material at room temperature for 4 days. An extract containing
Lkt50-GFP from white clover was able to induce an immune response in
rabbits (via injection), and rabbit antisera recognized and neutralized
authentic Lkt. This is the first demonstration of the expression of an
M. haemolytica antigen in plants and paves the way for
the development of transgenic plants expressing M. haemolytica antigens as an edible vaccine against bovine
pneumonic pasteurellosis.
0019-9567/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/IAI.69.9.5786-5793.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Towards Development of an Edible Vaccine against Bovine Pneumonic
Pasteurellosis Using Transgenic White Clover Expressing a
Mannheimia haemolytica A1 Leukotoxin 50 Fusion
Protein
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Microbiology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G
2W1. Phone: (519) 824-4120, ext. 3363. Fax: (519) 837-1802. E-mail: RLO{at}micro.uoguelph.ca.
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»