Reply #27: no-- and your response typifies the biological misinformation that permeates... [View All]

[mike_c]

...most objections to this sort of thing. No offense intended-- seriously! I appreciate that you've owned up to confusion.

Antibodies are the workhorses of the immune system. They recognize protein markers on the surface of pathogens and bind to the them, initiating a cascade of events that leads to (hopefully) overcoming the pathogen. Antibodies are vertebrates' natural defense against invasion. One of several actually-- we produce numerous antibiotics as well, but that's an entirely different system.

Antibodies recognize pathogen markers-- or epitopes-- after a first exposure. That's why you're immune to many diseases after suffering infection once. This pea expresses a protein that normally serves as an epitope for a pathogen, substituting for the first exposure that normally requires infection and conferring immunization.

It's functionally equivalent to an oral vaccine. It has no antibiotic properties at all.