Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects 2.3 million patients worldwide with no effective treatments available thus far. Depletion of autoreactive T-cells is considered the basis for immunotherapeutic approaches. For this purpose the peptides BV5S2, BV6S5, and BV13S1 have been identified as candidates for the development of a MS vaccine. Herein, the plant-based simultaneous production of these peptides is described as an effort to generate a new model of MS immunotherapy. A polyprotein comprising the sequence of the target peptides was designed having the picornaviral 2A sequence in between to mediate the release of the individual peptides upon translation. A codon optimized gene was cloned in vectors mediating constitutive (CaMV35S promoter) or inducible (AlcA promoter) expression. No transgenic tobacco plants were recovered from the constitutive vector suggesting toxicity of the target peptides. In contrast, several transformed lines were obtained with the inducible vector. The individual BV5S2, BV6S5, and BV13S1 peptides were detected in transformed lines upon ethanol-mediated induction and a quantitative analysis based on a OVA conjugate carrying the three peptides revealed accumulation levels up to 0.5 μg g-1 FW leaves. The plant-made peptides were able to induce humoral responses in orally immunized mice. This platform will be useful in the development of alternative immunotherapies against MS having low cost and safety as main attributes. Moreover the platform represents an attractive alternative for the expression of antigens having detrimental effects in plants.

中文翻译：

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植物中抗原的诱导表达：一项专注于与多发性硬化症免疫治疗相关的肽的研究。


多发性硬化症 (MS) 影响着全球 230 万患者，迄今为止尚无有效的治疗方法。自身反应性 T 细胞的耗竭被认为是免疫治疗方法的基础。为此，肽 BV5S2、BV6S5 和 BV13S1 已被确定为开发多发性硬化症疫苗的候选肽。在此，基于植物的同时生产这些肽被描述为生成 MS 免疫疗法新模型的努力。设计了包含靶肽序列的多蛋白，其间具有小核糖核酸病毒2A序列，以介导翻译时各个肽的释放。将密码子优化的基因克隆到介导组成型（CaMV35S启动子）或诱导型（AlcA启动子）表达的载体中。从组成型载体中没有回收到转基因烟草植物，这表明目标肽具有毒性。相反，用诱导型载体获得了几个转化系。在乙醇介导的诱导后，在转化株系中检测到了单独的 BV5S2、BV6S5 和 BV13S1 肽，并且基于携带这三种肽的 OVA 缀合物的定量分析显示，累积水平高达 0.5 μg g-1 FW 叶。植物制造的肽能够诱导口服免疫小鼠的体液反应。该平台将有助于开发针对多发性硬化症的替代免疫疗法，其主要特点是成本低且安全。此外，该平台代表了在植物中表达具有有害影响的抗原的有吸引力的替代方案。