Expression of GroES TB antigen in tobacco and potato.

Sujatha, J.; Ignacimuthu, S.; Ramakrishnan, M.; Kavitha, S.; Thomas, G.; Kannan, P.; Narayanan, S.

Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Cult.2014;119:157-169.

Abstract: As the world races towards a plant-based bio-economy, plants known to be ideal and economical bio-reactors are being harnessed for the production of recombinant proteins. The major immunodominant 10 kDa GroES TB antigen (Chaperonin 10) gene from Mycobacterium tuberculosis was selected for expression in plants as a putative tuberculosis (TB) subunit vaccine candidate. Two crops, tobacco and potato, were engineered by stable plant transformation for expression of the 10 kDa GroES TB antigen using non-viral binary vectors. The integration of the GroES TB gene into the genomes of tobacco and potato was confirmed by PCR and Southern blotting. The expression of the GroES TB antigen in tobacco was 0.04–1.2 % of the total soluble protein (TSP). However, the expression of the same TB antigen in the Indian potato cv. Kufri bahar was comparatively low (0.033% of TSP). The recombinant GroES plant derived protein was characterized and confirmed by MALDI-TOF–TOF and ELISA. This is the first report of the expression of the 10 kDa chaperonin in tobacco and potato.

Keywords: Plant derived GroES TB antigen; Transgenic tobacco; Transgenic potato; Omega factor

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