Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Scientists from Uzbekistan have created a tomato vaccine against coronavirus infection, TOMAVAC.

Based on genetic material and a tomato plant, a new generation vaccine against COVID-19 was created, which is supposed to be used against coronavirus infection and consumed directly as food.

Scientists placed a gene fragment encoding the coronavirus S1 protein into special vectors and inserted it into the genome of tomato cells. From these cells, a tomato plant was obtained that regularly produces the S1 protein antigen.

Tomato fruits obtained from these plants were shown to synthesize stable S1 protein antigen in an amount of 0.77 μg/g and were selected as the TOMAVAC vaccine.

Tests of the engineered vaccine, TOMAVAC, showed that mice and human volunteers produced high levels of neutralizing antibodies (IgA) in the serum and in the intestines.