plant-based yellow fever vaccine

The **plant-based yellow fever vaccine** is an experimental subunit vaccine candidate produced in *Nicotiana benthamiana* plants via transient expression. It consists of the yellow fever virus envelope protein (YFE, amino acids 286-682) either as a stand-alone subunit (YFE-1) or fused to bacterial lichenase (LicKM) at different sites (YFE-2E internal loop, YFE-3E C-terminus, YFE-4E N-terminus). YFE targets the elicitation of virus-neutralizing antibodies by mimicking the virus envelope's key immunogenic domains (DI, DII, DIII), which undergo conformational changes for viral fusion. Developed using plant agroinfiltration for scalable, low-cost production with eukaryotic post-translational modifications, preclinical studies in mice showed >70% protection from lethal challenge and high-avidity VN antibodies in nonhuman primates, though efficacy was inferior to live-attenuated 17DD vaccine, suggesting need for adjuvants like Alhydrogel.[1]

Other names

YFEYFE-LicKM