Expression of Hemagglutinin-Neuraminidase (HN) and Fusion (F) Epitopes of Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Owing to their unique characteristics which combines the properties of both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, microalgae have emerged as an ideal platform for heterologous production of recombinant proteins including subunit vaccines. In an attempt to develop recombinant vaccine against Newcastle Disease, an agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation was carried out to express a chimeric gene construct including Hemagglutinin-Neuraminidase (HN) and Fusion (F) epitopes of Newcastle Disease Virus (NDV) in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. Four tandem repeat of HN epitope with 96bp length followed by three tandem repeat of F epitope of NDV with 153bp length were used. Microalgal cells (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii) were co-cultivated with Agrobacterium tumefaciens cells harboring foreign gene construct and then transferred to selection medium. Single colonies representing putative transformation events were screened in selection medium enriched with kanamycin. PCR assay confirmed integration of F-HN sequence in microalgal nuclei. RT-PCR assay showed that the F-HN sequence was expressed in transformed colonies. Finally, translation of the foreign gene was confirmed by protein dot blotting, western blot and Elisa assay. The results of this experiment may contain both research and practical implications.