Journal of Antivirals & Antiretrovirals
Open Access

Panax ginseng as a Vaccine for Bovine Viral Diarrhea

Cyrus Obama^{* *}Correspondence: Cyrus Obama, Department of Virology, Aga Khan University Medical College, Nairobi, Kenya, Email:

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Description

The Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus (BVDV) is a flaviviridae virus with a positive-stranded RNA genome that is a prominent source of financial loss in cattle herds all over the world. Acute infection, diarrhoea, reproductive disorders, and deadly mucosal illnesses are all possible outcomes of BVDV infections, which have been on the rise in recent years. According to some studies, BVDV infection might damage an infected animal's immune system, making them more susceptible to other illnesses. Moreover, because BVDV may be transmitted across a range of animals, including cattle, sheep, and whitetail deer, the prevalence of BVDV in other domestic species may be essential to its epidemiology. According to reports, BVDV infection rates in juvenile deer in some parts of China reached 60 percent to 86.7 percent, resulting in economic losses in the sika deer sector due to the disease's high mortality and foetal infections. In a recent investigation, a novel single strain of BVDV from sika deer, dubbed CCSYD was discovered and confirmed. BVDV infection in sika deer is a severe problem, and an effective method to combat BVDV transmission is required.

Vaccines have been proven to be useful methods for controlling economically significant animal diseases. There are various commercial vaccinations available for Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD), however their effectiveness varies. Immune failure is frequently caused by the poor immunogenicity of inactivated BVDV vaccinations. Despite the fact that modified live vaccines offer some protection against homologous strains, the inherent danger of virulence reversion remains a worry. As a result, the use of recombinant subunit vaccinations has been advocated as a possible solution to these problems.

A Capsid protein (C), one N-terminal protease (Npro), three envelope glycoproteins (E1, E2, and Erns), a protein of 7 kDa (p7), and five non-structural proteins are all produced from BVDV genomes (NS2-3, NS4A, NS4B, NS5A, and NS5B). Cattle generate antibodies against the three envelope proteins (E1, E2, and Erns) as well as a non-structural protein after infection or inoculation (NS2-3). In BVDV-infected hosts, neutralising antibodies mostly target glycoprotein E2. The extremely varied sequence of the E2 protein, on the other hand, frequently leads to vaccination failure.

One of the virus's structural proteins is the Erns glycoprotein. Several investigations have demonstrated that several immunologically important Erns epitopes are conserved among BVDV isolates, and that the Erns amino acid composition differs little between pestiviruses. BVDV Erns has been employed as an antigen for BVDV serological detection since it is a conserved protein. Neutralizing antibodies are also generated by BVDV Erns expressed in prokaryotic systems, although at low titers that are ineffective in neutralising the virus. The misfolding of Erns when expressed in prokaryotes was blamed for this.

Because eukaryotic expression can maintain correct folding and glycosylation of proteins, eukaryotic expression has become a research focus in the study of subunit vaccines. A prokaryotic expression vector PVAX1-E0 and confirmed that the recombined PVAX1-E0 could produce specific humoral and cellular immune responses in rabbits was successfully constructed. However, the subunit vaccines only offered short-term immunity. Transgenic plants are new eukaryotic expression-delivery systems that have become attractive bioreactors in the production of high-value medical peptides and proteins. Plant-based vaccines offer several advantages over traditional vaccines such as ease of delivery, mucosal efficacy, safety, rapid scalability, and low cost. To date, several plant species have been used as antigen-delivery systems for subunit vaccines. For example, truncated glycoprotein BVDV E2 has been expressed in Nicotiana tabacum leaves and subsequently showed high reactivity in virus neutralization tests.

The addition of an adjuvant is another technique to increase the immunological activity of vaccinations. Adjuvants in vaccines can activate the immune system, causing the particular antibody response to rise. For almost 2000 years, Panax ginseng, sometimes known as ginseng, has been utilised as a medicinal herb in East Asia. Ginseng's main role is to boost the body's natural resistance against infections. Recent study has found that ginseng extracts can boost macrophage phagocytic activity, lymphocyte proliferation, cytokine production stimulation, and enhanced neutrophil, CD4+ T cell, and natural killer cell activity.