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NIBIOs ansatte publiserer flere hundre vitenskapelige artikler og forskningsrapporter hvert år. Her finner du referanser og lenker til publikasjoner og andre forsknings- og formidlingsaktiviteter. Samlingen oppdateres løpende med både nytt og historisk materiale. For mer informasjon om NIBIOs publikasjoner, besøk NIBIOs bibliotek.

2023

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Sammendrag

The recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has taught the world a costly lesson about the devastating consequences of viral disease outbreaks but also, the remarkable impact of vaccination in limiting life and economic losses. Vaccination against human Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), a major human pathogen affecting 290 million people worldwide, remains a key action towards viral hepatitis elimination by 2030. To meet this goal, the development of improved HBV antigens is critical to overcome non-responsiveness to standard vaccines based on the yeast-produced, small (S) envelope protein. We have recently shown that combining relevant immunogenic determinants of S and large (L) HBV proteins in chimeric antigens markedly enhances the anti-HBV immune response. However, the demand for cost-efficient, high-quality antigens remains challenging. This issue could be addressed by using plants as versatile and rapidly scalable protein production platforms. Moreover, the recent generation of plants lacking β-1,2-xylosyltransferase and α-1,3-fucosyltransferase activities (FX-KO), by CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing, enables production of proteins with “humanized” N-glycosylation. In this study, we investigated the impact of plant N-glycosylation on the immunogenic properties of a chimeric HBV S/L vaccine candidate produced in wild-type and FX-KO Nicotiana benthamiana. Prevention of β-1,2-xylose and α-1,3-fucose attachment to the HBV antigen significantly increased the immune response in mice, as compared with the wild-type plant-produced counterpart. Notably, the antibodies triggered by the FX-KO-made antigen neutralized more efficiently both wild-type HBV and a clinically relevant vaccine escape mutant. Our study validates in premiere the glyco-engineered Nicotiana benthamiana as a substantially improved host for plant production of glycoprotein vaccines.

Sammendrag

Constructed wetlands (CWs) are a widely recognised measure for reducing pollution loads and improving the quality of surface waters. The removal efficiency of CWs varies considerably depending on system type and design as well as residence time, hydraulic load, particles and nutrient loading rates. Therefore, there is a need to closely monitor the efficiency of existing measures, look at their efficiency in practice and be able to foresee potential implications for their efficiency in light of climate change and land management intensification. This study presents 18 years of data from a typical Norwegian small CW established in the Skuterud catchment. The main objective of this study was to look at the impact of hydraulic load, particles and nutrient loads (depending on climatic factors such as temperature and precipitation) on CW effectiveness. The results showed an average of 39 % and 22 % annual removal efficiency for sediment and phosphorus, respectively. It appears that good CW effectiveness coincides with a combination of high sediment or phosphorus loads to the CW and a stable runoff of low to moderate intensity. At the seasonal level, the highest sediment and phosphorus removal efficiency is observed in the summer seasons (47% for sediment and 29% for phosphorus), when the sediment and phosphorus loads and runoff are at their lowest, and the lowest in autumn (23% for sediment) and in winter (4% for phosphorus). The relationship between removal efficiency and loads to the CW is not that straightforward, as other seasonal differences, such as erosion patterns, vegetation development, also become important. The conclusion based on the results presented is that establishing CWs can be a good supplement to best management practice in erosion-prone catchments with sensitive recipients.