Posted on 01/18/2006 5:49:06 PM PST by neverdem
Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is one of the oldest known diseases of the plant world. Plague--known as the "black death" in medieval Europe--is one of the oldest diseases afflicting humans, and has become a focus of concern in recent years because of its potential use as a bioweapon. Now scientists have transformed TMV to infect host plants and produce immunizing proteins rather than debilitating leaf shrivel, turning greenhouse tobacco into a biofactory for plague vaccine.
Biotechnology specialists Charles Arntzen and his colleagues at Arizona State University used a process developed in Germany to effect the change. First, they injected the tobacco plants with TMV, genetically modified to produce one of three previously proven plague antigens: proteins known as F1, V and a fusion of the two. The three varieties of modified viruses quickly infiltrated the plants and replicated, but instead of producing infection, each viral cell started producing its assigned type of antigen. Within 10 days, the researchers had a full crop of tobacco leaves filled with vaccine. "Every time it replicates, it makes the proteins that we are interested in getting produced," Arntzen says.
Arntzen and colleagues then ground up the leaves--garnering roughly two milligrams of antigen for every gram of leaf--and purified the resulting vaccine with acids. Fellow researchers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease in Maryland then vaccinated groups of eight female guinea pigs with the different varieties of antigens before exposing them to Yersinia pestis--the bacteria responsible for airborne plague, the most potentially deadly form. Within six days, whereas all guinea pigs that had not been vaccinated were dead, nearly 60 percent of the vaccinated guinea pigs survived, and even those that died survived for longer than six days. The V antigen proved most effective, saving 75 percent of the inoculated guinea pigs.
Human testing remains to be done. But if the vaccine passes that test, it could provide an effective deterrent to emerging strains that have shown resistance to the antibiotics that have kept the deadly disease at bay in recent history. The findings are being published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
FYI
Interesting.
Of course you don't get immunized if you smoke.
Aw,shucks !
They'd better hurry. Tobacco's going to be taxed out of the state in Arizona's next general election. If these guys aren't careful they'll end up being pursued down back alleys by Health Nazis with torches and scythes. (Arizona smokers beware! Get a rolling machine and put away as much tobacco as you can before Jan. 1, 2007.)
ping
People here in Tobacco Country have been following these efforts to use the tobacco plant as a "new pharma" factory even as their livelihood for several generations evaporated into lawyers pockets. Customers (and their heirs and assigns) do tend to get peeved at you when your products kill them.
This is good news. Imagine developing new products based on tobacco that help people stay alive, rather than painfully killing them. Perhaps future generations will still be able to make a living as tobacco (mosaic virus genetically engineered to produce pharmaceuticals) farmers.
Our old friend TMV - teaching and old dog a new trick.
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FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list. Anyone can post any unposted link as they see fit.
How much things have changed since then. lol
Oh yeah.........like the antis are going to let anything "good" about tobacco be publicized on a wide scale.
Interestingly enough, tomatoes are even more suspecitble to the tobacco mmosaic virus than tobacco is. That is the main reason you should not plant tomatoes anywhere near tobacco plants. They pass the virus back and forth. thankfully I have enough space that a few hundred of each plant won't be near each other.
Both plants are verietis of the deadly nightshade.
Thanks for the ping!
I know that.............but the weird thing is that peppers, tomatoes and eggplant can all be grown together, but of the 3 it is only tomatoes that can't be grown with tobacco.
Beans and corn will be seperating my deadly nightshade plants from each other thisyear, so I'm not worried :)
Never a problem, FRiend..............
And on that note I will bid you and all good night.
So, are docs going to dispense snuff now?
My grand father used to plant tomatoes in 4 long rows next to the tobacco, on the outside of the field. If the Mosaic Virus was getting into a field, the tomatoes would show it before the tobacco plants were damaged. That, and we had fresh tomatoes...
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