Update on the use of transgenic rice seeds in oral immunotherapy.

Rice seed provides an ideal production platform for pharmaceuticals in terms of high productivity and stability, as well as the scalability, safety and economy that are expected in plant production systems. Furthermore, these therapeutic products are bioencapsulated in protein bodies, which are seed-specific storage organelles that provide protection from digestion by gastrointestinal enzymes during delivery to the gut-associated lymphoid tissue. Thus, rice seed provides an ideal delivery system for the mucosal immune system. Oral immunotherapy using unprocessed transgenic rice seed containing therapeutic products has been demonstrated to induce effective mucosal immune tolerance and immune reactions against allergies and pathogens.