Antibodies against the Ebola virus produced by plants – namely tobacco – protected the infected monkeys from the disease, reports Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Ebola virus causes hemorrhagic fever, in which more than half of the infected people (sometimes up to 90 percent) die. Infection occurs through direct contact with the patient’s body fluids (blood, saliva, urine, sweat); after infection, Ebola multiplies in virtually all tissues, damaging them and causing hemorrhages from the openings of the body and conjunctiva after a few days. Treatment is only symptomatic; there is no causal and no vaccine for this disease. Ebola-induced epidemics mainly affect Central African countries.
Ebola along with a slightly less deadly cousin – the Marburg virus, belong to the so-called filoviruses. These are viruses whose genetic material is RNA (similar to influenza or HIV). RNA viruses are much more variable than viruses whose genetic makeup resides in DNA, making it difficult to develop an effective vaccine to prevent infection. In addition, due to the virulence of the virus, tests must be carried out in specially secured laboratories (so-called BSL4).
After more than ten years of research, scientists led by Dr. Gene Olinger from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious diseases managed to develop a method of producing human antibodies against a dangerous virus with the help of plants, in this case tobacco. Tobacco antibodies turned out to be cheaper and more effective than cell culture-derived antibodies.
The obtained monoclonal antibody cocktail was administered to the Monoceros monkeys that had been infected with the Ebola virus an hour earlier. The disease did not develop. Moreover, two-thirds of the animals were protected even when a vaccine called MB-OO3 was administered 48 hours after infection (PAP).
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