Vaccines in the garden

In the future, we will be able to grow vaccines in our garden

Anna Yudina, "Scientific Russia"

The future of vaccines may be more like eating lettuce than a shot in the arm. Scientists at the University of California at Riverside intend to turn edible plants, such as lettuce, into factories for the production of mRNA vaccines, according to a press release Grow and eat your own vaccines?

The information RNA or mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines works by training our cells to recognize and protect us from infectious diseases. One of the problems associated with this new technology is that it needs to be stored in the cold to maintain stability during transportation and storage. If this new project proves successful, mRNA vaccines based on edible plants will be able to overcome this problem due to the possibility of storage at room temperature.

The goals of the project, made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation, have three goals: to show that DNA containing mRNA vaccines can be successfully delivered to the part of plant cells where it will be replicated, and to demonstrate that plants can produce enough mRNA to compete with them.

"Ideally, one plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate one person," said Juan Pablo Giraldo, associate professor of botany and plants at the University of California, Riverside, who is leading the study conducted in collaboration with scientists from the University of California, San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University.

"We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and setting long–term goals for people to grow them in their own gardens," Giraldo said. "Farmers may also end up growing whole fields of plants."

The key to this work is chloroplasts – small organs in plant cells that convert sunlight into energy that the plant can use. "These are tiny solar–powered factories that produce sugar and other molecules that allow plants to grow," Giraldo said. "They are also an untapped source for creating the desired molecules."

In the past, Giraldo has shown that chloroplasts can express genes that are not naturally part of a plant. He and his colleagues did this by sending foreign genetic material into plant cells inside a protective shell. Determining the optimal properties of these shells for delivery to plant cells is a specialty of Giraldo's laboratory.

Chloroplasts (purple) expressing green fluorescent protein.

For this project, Giraldo teamed up with Nicole Steinmetz, a professor of nanoengineering at the University of California, San Diego, to use nanotechnology developed by her team that delivers genetic material to chloroplasts.

"Our idea is to use naturally occurring nanoparticles, namely plant viruses, to deliver genes to plants," Steinmetz said. "Some engineering developments are aimed at getting nanoparticles into chloroplasts, as well as making them non–infectious to plants."

For Giraldo, the opportunity to develop this idea with the help of mRNA is a dream come true. "One of the reasons I started working in the field of nanotechnology was that I could apply it in plants and create new technological solutions. Not only for food, but also for expensive products such as pharmaceuticals," Giraldo said. He is also co-director of a related project using nanomaterials to deliver nitrogen, fertilizer, directly to chloroplasts, where plants need it most.

The nitrogen content in the environment is limited, but it is necessary for plants to grow. Most farmers add nitrogen to the soil. As a result, about half of it enters the groundwater, polluting waterways, causing algae blooms and interacting with other organisms. It also produces nitrous oxide, another pollutant.

This alternative approach will deliver nitrogen to the chloroplasts through the leaves and control its release – a much more efficient way of application that can help farmers and improve the environment.

The National Science Foundation has allocated $1.6 million to Giraldo and his colleagues to develop this targeted nitrogen delivery technology. "I'm very excited about all this research," Giraldo said. "I think it can have a huge impact on people's lives."

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