www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

Scientists have long studied plants as vehicles to produce vaccines,
antibodies, antigens, and hormones, and their efforts are beginning to pay
off, February 2006.

Such transgenic plants can provide a low-cost system to produce such
molecules, including interleukin-12 (IL-12), which can, among others,
enhance cytotoxic responses and elicit significant anti-tumor and
anti-angiogenesis effects. These stop tumors and tumor-feeding blood vessels
from forming, cutting off nutrients from a potentially dangerous growth.

In a recent issue of Transgenic Research, Abel Gutierrez-Ortega, of the
Centro de Investigacion y de Estudios Avanzados del I.P.N., and colleagues
were able to effect ?Expression of functional interleukin-12 from mouse in
transgenic tomato plants.?

Researchers used the molecule?s gene, expressed it under the CaMV 35S
promoter, and introduced the gene to tomato plants. They found that IL-12,
when expressed, was functional, and accumulated to high levels in transgenic
tomato fruits and leaves.

Read the abstract at:
[dx.doi.org]

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