Plant Produced Porcine IL-12 Vaccine Adjuvant for Swine Flu and Other Viral Diseases

(23) Non-technical Summary: TITLE: Plant Produced Porcine Il-12 Vaccine Adjuvant for Swine Flu and Other Viral Diseases PD: Radin, David N., PhD, BioStrategies LC CoPD: Cramer, Carole L., PhD, Arkansas State University and BioStrategies LC CoPD: Medrano, Giuliana, PhD, Arkansas State University As the nation attempts to meet the challenges posed by the spread of pandemic influenza there is a need for innovative strategies to produce effective vaccines for domestic swine which are a key carrier and incubator for new flu varieties threatening humans and commercial swine herds. Interleukin-12 (IL-12) is a potent adjuvant of cell-mediated immunity that has been shown to enhance protection from influenza pathogens. The use of IL-12 adjuvant could improve vaccines for several serious porcine diseases including flu but the high cost of current production methods cannot sustain the scaled up product availability necessary for large scale vaccination strategies. Plant-based production offers several potential benefits over conventional production systems including lower startup costs and increased flexibility in terms of scale-up, storage, safety, and cost containment. Our Phase I research demonstrated that plants can produce fully functional Porcine IL-12 adjuvant in a transient tobacco expression system. This Phase II SBIR proposes to further develop this plant-produced immune stimulator adjuvant product (PoIL-12) by addressing the following specific objectives: I. Demonstrate CMI-inducing efficacy or porcine IL-12 in vivo. II. Enhance yields of recombinant porcine IL-12 in plants. III. Assess protection and vaccine dose-sparing potential of pIL-12 in SIV vaccination trials. IV. Test the potential of orally administered pIL-12 to provide protective immune stimulation. This Phase II R & D, in addition to developing in vivo vaccine adjuvancy protocols of plant-produced porcine IL-12 in pigs, will focus on enhancing plant-based IL-12 product yields in support of Phase III commercial development.