Soybean seeds: a practical host for the production of functional subunit vaccines

Soybean seeds possess several inherent qualities that make them an ideal host for the production of biopharmaceuticals when compared with other plant-based and non-plant-based recombinant expression systems (e.g., low cost of production, high protein to biomass ratio, long-term stability of seed proteins under ambient conditions, etc.). To demonstrate the practicality and feasibility of this platform for the production of subunit vaccines, we chose to express and characterize a nontoxic form of S. aureus enterotoxin B (mSEB) as a model vaccine candidate. We show that soy-mSEB was produced at a high vaccine to biomass ratio and represented ~76 theoretical doses of human vaccine per single soybean seed. We localized the model vaccine candidate both intracellularly and extracellularly and found no difference in mSEB protein stability or accumulation relative to subcellular environment. We also show that the model vaccine was biochemically and immunologically similar to native and recombinant forms of the protein produced in a bacterial expression system. Immunization of mice with seed extracts containing mSEB mounted a significant immune response within 14 days of the first injection. Taken together, our results highlight the practicality of soybean seeds as a potential platform for the production of functional subunit vaccines.