Neutralizing antibodies against rotavirus produced in transgenically labelled purple tomatoes
2012
Juárez, Paloma | Presa, Silvia | Espí, Joaquín | Pineda, Benito | Antón, María T. | Moreno, V. (Vicente) | Buesa, Javier | Granell, Antonio | Orzaez, Diego
Edible fruits are inexpensive biofactories for human health‐promoting molecules that can be ingested as crude extracts or partially purified formulations. We show here the production of a model human antibody for passive protection against the enteric pathogen rotavirus in transgenically labelled tomato fruits. Transgenic tomato plants expressing a recombinant human immunoglobulin A (hIgA_2A1) selected against the VP8* peptide of rotavirus SA11 strain were obtained. The amount of hIgA_2A1 protein reached 3.6 ± 0.8% of the total soluble protein in the fruit of the transformed plants. Minimally processed fruit‐derived products suitable for oral intake showed anti‐VP8* binding activity and strongly inhibited virus infection in an in vitro virus neutralization assay. In order to make tomatoes expressing hIgA_2A1 easily distinguishable from wild‐type tomatoes, lines expressing hIgA_2A1 transgenes were sexually crossed with a transgenic tomato line expressing the genes encoding Antirrhinum majus Rosea1 and Delila transcription factors, which confer purple colour to the fruit. Consequently, transgenically labelled purple tomato fruits expressing hIgA_2A1 have been developed. The resulting purple‐coloured extracts from these fruits contain high levels of recombinant anti‐rotavirus neutralizing human IgA in combination with increased amounts of health‐promoting anthocyanins.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by National Agricultural Library