What are recombinant DNA vaccines? Give | Class 12 Biology Chapter Human Health and Disease, Human Health and Disease NCERT Solutions

Recombinant vaccines are made up of a small circular DNA (plasmid) that has very tiny piece of pathogen DNA incorporated in it to produce one or two specific proteins of the pathogen.

This recombinant DNA is introduced in to the bacteria or yeast cells, where it can use cell’s machinery to produce polypeptides of the pathogen. These are used as vaccine to trigger a range of immune responses. Vaccine produced by using this approach allow large scale production, e.g.

1. Hepatitis- B vaccine produced from yeast
2. Bird flu DNA vaccine

Advantages:

1. Recombinant DNA vaccines are advantageous over killed or attenuated vaccines since they does not get virulent or mutated again as it is seen in case of attenuated vaccines.
2. Secondly, these are highly pure, specific and elicits strong immune response.