Tobacco Produces Protein for Vaccine Against the Stomach Bug Called Norovirus.
Abc News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tobacco plants might yield a cheap and easy-to-administer vaccine against a pesky stomach virus called norovirus, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
They found a way to make tobacco produce a protein that can be used to make a nasal vaccine against norovirus, which causes diarrhea and vomiting, especially on cruise ships, in restaurants, schools and on military bases.
"Under appropriate medical care it is not life-threatening. It is just very, very inconvenient," Charles Arntzen, a plant biologist at Arizona State University, told a news conference at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 23 million cases a year of acute gastroenteritis -- stomach and intestinal upset -- are due to norovirus, also known as Norwalk virus.
Arntzen and colleagues used a genetically engineered plant virus called the tobacco mosaic virus to start their vaccine.
"We force it to make the protein which is the vaccine against norovirus," Arntzen told the news conference. "We call them nanoparticle vaccines because the protein we produce in our tobacco plant self-assembles into a little round ball."Read more...
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