Yoshikazu Yuki

Invasion of infectious agents through mucosal surfaces can be prevented by use of the common mucosal immune system (CMIS), which interconnects inductive tissues, including Peyer's patches (PPs) and nasopharyngeal-associated lymphoreticular tissue (NALT), and effector tissues of the intestinal and respiratory tracts. In order for the CMIS to induce maximal protective mucosal immunity, co-administration of mucosal adjuvant has been shown to be essential. When vaccine antigen is administered togeth

It has been about 30 years since the first plant engineering technology was established. Although the concept of plant-based pharmaceuticals or vaccines motivates us to develop practicable commercial products using plant engineering, there are some difficulties in reaching the final goal: to manufacture an approved product. At present, the only plant-made vaccine approved by the United States Department of Agriculture is a Newcastle disease vaccine for poultry that is produced in suspension-cult

We identified several low-abundance proteins of bovine colostrum and mature milk using the immunoabsorption technique and two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) followed by microsequencing and mass spectrometry. Two major milk proteins, beta-casein and immunoglobulin G (IgG), were effectively removed from the milk using immunoabsorbents. Milk samples before and after immunoabsorption were separated by 2-DE. Protein identification of the spots on 2-DE was performed by either gel comparison, micro

Mucosal vaccines are considered the most suitable type of vaccines to combat emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases because of their ability to induce both mucosal and systemic immunity. Considerable advances have been made toward the development of mucosal vaccines against influenza virus and rotavirus. Many additional mucosal vaccines are in development, including vaccines against cholera, typhoid, traveler's diarrhea and respiratory infections. In addition to oral and nasal vaccines, tr

Plants have been used as expression systems for a number of vaccines. However, the expression of vaccines in plants sometimes results in unexpected modification of the vaccines by N-terminal blocking and sugar-chain attachment. Although MucoRice-CTB was thought to be the first cold-chain-free and unpurified oral vaccine, the molecular heterogeneity of MucoRice-CTB, together with plant-based sugar modifications of the CTB protein, has made it difficult to assess immunological activity of vaccine

Two-dimensional electrophoresis (2-DE) followed by electroblotting and microsequencing is considered to be the most powerful method for the isolation and characterization of proteins. In this paper, we report the separation and determination of the N-terminal and/or internal amino acid sequences of the minor proteins of human colostral and mature milk by 2-DE and microsequencing. In order to analyze the minor proteins of human milk, we use immunoabsorbents to remove three major proteins, alpha-l

Translational Research Acceleration Network Program of Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development; Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan; Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development; Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) (18H05280) (to H K) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS); Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (16K16144) (to Y K) from JSPS; Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (18K18148) (to Y K) from J

Nasal vaccination is considered a potent and practical immunization route for the induction of effective immunity to infectious diseases. Successful nasal vaccines require efficient delivery to, and retention of antigens within, nasal mucosa, including both the inductive (e.g., nasopharynx-associated lymphoid tissues) and effector (e.g., turbinate covered with single-layer epithelium) tissues, where antigen-specific immune responses are initiated and executed, respectively. We developed an appro