Potato may offer protection against human papillomavirus.(Brief Article)

2002 JUL 3 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Scientists are bellying up to the challenge of creating an edible vaccine to confer protection against human papillomavirus (HPV), one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases and the cause of virtually all cases of cervical cancer in women.

Potatoes produced and tested by scientists at the University of Rochester, Cornell University and Tulane University provoked an immune response in mice that munched on the transgenic spuds. When enhanced with a substance derived from Escherichia coli to boost their effectiveness, the potatoes provoked the immune system in the same way thought to be necessary to protect humans from the virus.

It's another step on the path of creating not only a vaccine to protect against a common sexually transmitted disease, but a vaccine that would make needles needless.

"The beauty of an oral vaccine is that you don't need a needle. In most cases you don't even need a doctor," said virologist Robert Rose, PhD, one of the vaccine's creators at the University of Rochester. "You don't need sterile injection equipment or highly skilled medical personnel who know how to inject a vaccine; you just need to put a couple of drops on someone's tongue. Part of the reason that polio has been virtually stamped out is because of the development of an oral vaccine.

"We're designing a vaccine in a way that it could be readily delivered in developing countries, where it is most urgently needed," Rose said.

The work is the latest in a series of steps to create edible vaccines for a cornucopia of diseases. Bananas, potatoes, tobacco and apples are among the crops being tested for the production of vaccines for diseases like hepatitis B, rotavirus, respiratory syncytial virus, and even tooth decay. At the forefront of the budding technology have been Hugh Mason and Charles Arntzen, formerly of Cornell's Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Biology and now at Arizona State University.

Making the HPV vaccine edible is the latest twist in HPV research at the University that spans more than a decade. In the early 1990s a Rochester team isolated the genetic sequence that creates the protein envelope surrounding the HPV virus. Using that DNA sequence, scientists created virus-like particles, or VLPs, that are not infectious but simply look like viral particles. The team, which included Richard Reichman, MD, William Bonnez, MD, and Rose, soon learned that immunization with VLPs could block infection, suggesting the particles might be useful for a vaccine.