Table 5.
Current status of WHO listed plant-based vaccine candidates for COVID-19 under trial stages.
| Vaccine | Vaccine Platform Description | Developers | Transformation Method | Expression System | Status | No. of Doses | Schedule | Route of Administration | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| COVID-19 VPL Vaccine (CoVLP) | Virus-like particle (VLP)/Spike protein | Medicago Inc. (Québec, Canada) | VLPExpress™ system (Agro-infiltration) | Nicotiana benthamiana | Phase 2/3 | 2 | Day 0 + 21 | IM | [135,143] |
| COVID-19 Subunit Vaccine (KBP-201) | Protein Subunit | Kentucky BioProcessing, Inc. (KBP) | Agro-infiltration | Nicotiana benthamiana | Phase 2 | 2 | Day 0 + 21 | IM | [144] |
| COVID-19 Subunit Vaccine (IBIO-201) | Protein Subunit/Spike protein | iBio, Inc. (NY, USA) | FastPharming™ system (Agro-infiltration) | Arabidopsis thaliana | Pre-clinical | NA | NA | NA | [145] |
| COVID-19 Subunit Vaccine | Development of recombinant protein-based S1 and S2 (Spike) and nucleocapsid subunits vaccines using a plant expression vector. | Akdeniz University (Turkey) | Agro-infiltration | Nicotiana benthamiana | Pre-clinical | NA | NA | NA | [142] |
| COVID-19 VLP | Virus-like particle/Spike protein | Shiraz University (Iran) | Agro-infiltration | Nicotiana benthamiana | Pre-clinical | NA | NA | NA | [142] |
| COVID-19 Subunit Vaccine | Plant-based subunit (RBD-Fc + Adjuvant)/Spike protein | Baiya Phytopharm/Chula Vaccine Research Center (Thailand) | Agro-infiltration | Nicotiana benthamiana | Pre-clinical | NA | NA | NA | [3] |