Expression of the synthetic neutralizing epitope gene of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus in tobacco plants without nicotine

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) causes acute diarrhea and dehydration in pigs, leading to death with a high mortality. In this study, the synthetic neutralizing epitope gene of PEDV, which was optimized based on the coding sequence of tobacco plant genes being modified, was expressed in the no-nicotine tobacco plants. The synthetic gene was cloned into the plant expression vector under the control of CaMV 35S promoter and transformed by an Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The amount of synthetic epitope protein of PEDV detected in the transgenic tobacco plants was approximately 2.1% of the total soluble plant protein, which was approximately five-fold higher than that expressed with the native gene.