Review Combating Human Viral Diseases: Will Plant-Based Vaccines Be the Answer? Srividhya Venkataraman 1,*, Kathleen Hefferon 1, Abdullah Makhzoum 2 and Mounir Abouhaidar 1 1 Virology Laboratory, Department of Cell & Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3B2, Canada;
[email protected] (K.H.);
[email protected] (M.A.) 2 Department of Biological Sciences & Biotechnology, Botswana International University of Science & Technology, Palapye, Botswana;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: Molecular pharming or the technology of application of plants and plant cell culture to manufacture high-value recombinant proteins has progressed a long way over the last three decades. Whether generated in transgenic plants by stable expression or in plant virus-based transient ex- pression systems, biopharmaceuticals have been produced to combat several human viral diseases that have impacted the world in pandemic proportions. Plants have been variously employed in expressing a host of viral antigens as well as monoclonal antibodies. Many of these biopharmaceuti- cals have shown great promise in animal models and several of them have performed successfully in clinical trials. The current review elaborates the strategies and successes achieved in generating plant-derived vaccines to target several virus-induced health concerns including highly commu- nicable infectious viral diseases. Importantly, plant-made biopharmaceuticals against hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), the cancer-causing virus human papillomavirus (HPV), human Citation: Venkataraman, S.; immunodeficiency virus (HIV), influenza virus, zika virus, and the emerging respiratory virus, Hefferon, K.; Makhzoum, A.; Abouhaidar, M. Combating Human severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) have been discussed.