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Plant-based BioProduction of Chicken IL-12 Adjuvant for Bird Flu Vaccines
Phone: (870) 972-3991
Email: dradin@astate.edu
Title: Managing Director
Phone: (870) 972-3991
Email: dradin@astate.edu
The primary focus of this project is to develop new high valued health related agricultural products
through the application of biotechnological research approaches. Domestic and wild fowl, as the disease
reservoir for avian influenza virus, play a central role in the re-emergence of this potentially pandemic
disease pathogen. The increasing threat of pandemic flu in domestic fowl and human populations has
activated governments, agricultural, and medical health agencies in the US and globally to initiate
multifaceted research and development efforts aimed at mitigating this threat. These efforts include
monitoring global spread of pandemic strains of flu virus in bird and human populations, implementing plans
to control infected domestic poultry to minimize intra and inter-species virus transmission, and accelerating
research in the disease biology to develop other effective counter-measures. Although much of this effort
targets human vaccines and antiviral therapeutics, new technologies for producing inexpensive high-quality
agricultural vaccines to control avian flu at its source will be critical to successful intervention in the disease
cycle supporting the threat of pandemic flu in both domestic poultry and humans.
In order to effectively target the threat of flu to domestic poultry innovative, strategies to produce critical
avian influenza research reagents and rapidly scalable vaccine components for poultry are clearly required.
This project focuses on the bioproduction of avian interleukin-12 (IL-12) to address both of these needs. IL-
12 is a potent adjuvant and key modulator of cell-mediated immunity and greatly enhances the efficacy of
influenza vaccines in animal studies. There are currently no sources for IL-12 from any avian species. The
PIs have developed a plant-based bioproduction system for the 70 kD heterodimeric mouse IL-12
glycoprotein that provides high yields of recombinant protein with equivalent bioactivity to animal-cell
derived mIL-12 in both in vitro assays and in vivo mouse vaccination trials. The goals of this SBIR are to
exploit this bioproduction platform to produce chicken IL-12 (ChIL-12) and assess feasibility with respect to
product yield and bioactivity. Specific aims of Phase I include developing ChIL-12 gene constructs,
characterizing ChIL-12 produced in leaf material, and demonstrating the immunomodulating bioactivity of
plant-derived ChIL-12. Based on a successful Phase I, Phase II would focus on process scale-up,
demonstration of efficacy in avian vaccine trials, assessment of ChIL-12 activity across avian species, and
tests to address efficacy with oral delivery. Co-formulation of this strong immuno-adjuvant with avian
vaccines may ensure that these poultry vaccines elicit sufficient immunity to prevent avian flu transmission
at the source. Plant-based bioproduction may provide the cost and scale advantages to enable these
benefits to be widely integrated into avian influenza vaccine strategies for both domestic and wild bird
populations.
* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *