Heat Shock Proteins (HSP) da pianta e loro potenziali applicazioni in vaccinologia
Author(s)
Buriani, Giampaolo
Date Issued
March 14, 2008
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
The three years PhD activity focused on plant Heat Shock Proteins (HSP) and their potential
application vaccinology. HSPs include many proteins family, between them the HSP70 one.
Besides their historical functions as molecular chaperons, was demonstrated that HSP70 can
interact and active the mammalian immune system. This feature was not due to HSP70 alone, but to
their association with peptides deriving from cell protein catabolism. The main goal of the project
was evaluating if HSP70-complexes derived from plants ex pressing an antigenic protein, were
able to interact with mammalian immune system and trigger a specific response against the antigen,
as was demonstrated for mammalian HSP70-pepide complexes. In order to get these result was
followed an experimental approach based on: bioinformatic experiments (in order to obtaining
tridimensional model plant HSP70 which can be verify the homology with plant and mammalian
HSP0), physiology studies (in order to identify the conditions in which the HSP70 expression in
plant tissues was the most high), biochemistry experiments (In order to set up a purification
protocol to obtaining HSP70-peptides complexes from N. benthamiana leaves) transient expression
experiments in plant tissues (in order to obtain Influenza A Virus Nucleoprotein expression by
agroinfiltration) and immunological experiments (in order to verify the potency of the HSP70-
peptide complexes purified from plant expressing NP protein to elicit a specific immune response in
appropriate murine model).
The achieved results are encourageing, they seem to confirm the association between NP deriving
peptides and plant HSP70. Despite that, other experiments are necessary in order to give strength to
the immunological result. These feature of plant derived HSP70 with the fact that their
immunization doesn’t need any adjuvants, open brand new perspectives in vaccinology research
field, giving new interest to plant in the pharmaceutical research.
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Biotecnologie vegetali
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