Affordable oral health care: dental biofilm disruption using chloroplast made enzymes with chewing gum delivery.

Current approaches for oral health care rely on procedures that are unaffordable to impoverished populations, whereas aerosolized droplets in the dental clinic and poor oral hygiene may contribute to spread of several infectious diseases including COVID-19, requiring new solutions for dental biofilm/plaque treatment at home. Plant cells have been used to produce monoclonal antibodies or antimicrobial peptides for topical applications to decrease colonization of pathogenic microbes on dental surface. Therefore, we investigated an affordable method for dental biofilm disruption by expressing lipase, dextranase or mutanase in plant cells via the chloroplast genome. Antibiotic resistance gene used to engineer foreign genes into the chloroplast genome were subsequently removed using direct repeats flanking the aadA gene and enzymes were successfully expressed in marker-free lettuce transplastomic lines. Equivalent enzyme units of plant-derived lipase performed better than purified commercial enzymes against biofilms, specifically targeting fungal hyphae formation. Combination of lipase with dextranase and mutanase suppressed biofilm development by degrading the biofilm matrix, with concomitant reduction of bacterial and fungal accumulation. In chewing gum tablets formulated with freeze-dried plant cells, expressed protein was stable up to 3 years at ambient temperature and was efficiently released in a time-dependent manner using a mechanical chewing simulator device. Development of edible plant cells expressing enzymes eliminates the need for purification and cold-chain transportation, providing a potential translatable therapeutic approach. Biofilm disruption through plant enzymes and chewing gum-based delivery offers an effective and affordable dental biofilm control at home particularly for populations with minimal oral care access.

Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against infectious diseases in humans-part 2: Affordable drugs in edible plants for endemic and re-emerging diseases.

The fight against infectious diseases often focuses on epidemics and pandemics, which demand urgent resources and command attention from the health authorities and media. However, the vast majority of deaths caused by infectious diseases occur in endemic zones, particularly in developing countries, placing a disproportionate burden on underfunded health systems and often requiring international interventions. The provision of vaccines and other biologics is hampered not only by the high cost and limited scalability of traditional manufacturing platforms based on microbial and animal cells, but also by challenges caused by distribution and storage, particularly in regions without a complete cold chain. In this review article, we consider the potential of molecular farming to address the challenges of endemic and re-emerging diseases, focusing on edible plants for the development of oral drugs. Key recent developments in this field include successful clinical trials based on orally delivered dried leaves of Artemisia annua against malarial parasite strains resistant to artemisinin combination therapy, the ability to produce clinical-grade protein drugs in leaves to treat infectious diseases and the long-term storage of protein drugs in dried leaves at ambient temperatures. Recent FDA approval of the first orally delivered protein drug encapsulated in plant cells to treat peanut allergy has opened the door for the development of affordable oral drugs that can be manufactured and distributed in remote areas without cold storage infrastructure and that eliminate the need for expensive purification steps and sterile delivery by injection.

Contributions of the international plant science community to the fight against human infectious diseases - part 1: epidemic and pandemic diseases.

Infectious diseases, also known as transmissible or communicable diseases, are caused by pathogens or parasites that spread in communities by direct contact with infected individuals or contaminated materials, through droplets and aerosols, or via vectors such as insects. Such diseases cause ˜17% of all human deaths and their management and control places an immense burden on healthcare systems worldwide. Traditional approaches for the prevention and control of infectious diseases include vaccination programmes, hygiene measures and drugs that suppress the pathogen, treat the disease symptoms or attenuate aggressive reactions of the host immune system. The provision of vaccines and biologic drugs such as antibodies is hampered by the high cost and limited scalability of traditional manufacturing platforms based on microbial and animal cells, particularly in developing countries where infectious diseases are prevalent and poorly controlled. Molecular farming, which uses plants for protein expression, is a promising strategy to address the drawbacks of current manufacturing platforms. In this review article, we consider the potential of molecular farming to address healthcare demands for the most prevalent and important epidemic and pandemic diseases, focussing on recent outbreaks of high-mortality coronavirus infections and diseases that disproportionately affect the developing world.

Emerging mosquito-borne arboviral infection Zika-An epidemiological review

The unprecedented resurgence and geographical expansion of arboviral infections such as dengue, Chikungunya, yellow fever, and Zika have a significant impact on human health and pose a serious threat to public health globally in recent years. Zika virus is a Flavivirus and is transmitted to humans through an infected mosquito bite. The Zika virus has been identified in many countries in Africa, Asia, and Pacific islands and sporadic human cases have been reported since 1947. The non-specific clinical symptoms of Zika fever are often misdiagnosed with other arboviral infections, especially dengue and chikungunya. Till now, there is no vaccine or specific antiviral treatment for Zika infection. The recent emergence of Zika is alarming and highlights the need for arboviral research to develop an effective treatment. Here in this review, we discussed the epidemiology of Zika, which has re-emerged in the recent decade and caused international concern.

Epidemiology, clinical features and transmission of re-emerging arboviral infection chikungunya

A number of re-emerging and emerging infectious diseases including chikungunya, West Nile, yellow fever, Zika, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, and others have increased in recent years, which threaten the public health across the globe. Chikungunya is a neglected re-emerging arboviral infection caused by chikungunya virus. Arboviral infections such as chikungunya, Zika and dengue have similar epidemiology, transmission cycles and clinical symptoms, which makes it difficult to diagnose these three infections. Moreover, there is no commercial vaccine or licensed therapy available for chikungunya infection, thus causing severe burden worldwide. Vector control may reduce the disease risk; however, this remains a challenge due to many factors including, but not limited to, evolution of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes, gaps in vector control tools, urbanization, environmental and demographic changes. Effective integrated vector control strategies and surveillance measures along with affordable vaccine development or anti-viral therapy are essential to control the infection. In this review, we discuss the epidemiology of mosquito-borne infection chikungunya which has re-emerged as an international concern in recent decades.