Molecular farming of recombinant antibodies in plants

Abstract

Antibodies represent a large proportion of therapeutic drugs currently in development. In most cases, they are produced in mammalian cell lines or transgenic animals because these have been shown to fold and assemble the proteins correctly and generate authentic glycosylation patterns. However, such expression systems are expensive, difficult to scale up and there are safety concerns due to potential contamination with pathogenic organisms or oncogenic DNA sequences. Plants represent an inexpensive, efficient and safe alternative for the production of recombinant antibodies. Research over the last 10 years has shown that plants can produce a variety of functional antibodies and there is now intense interest in scaling up production to commercial levels. In this review, we discuss the advantages of plants over traditional expression systems, describe how antibody expression in plants is achieved and optimized and then consider the practical issues concerning large-scale molecular farming in plants. The first plant-produced therapeutic antibodies are already in clinical trials, and, given the economic benefits of this production system, we are likely to see many more recombinant antibodies produced in this manner in the future.

Human-derived, plant-produced monoclonal antibody for the treatment of anthrax

“…In conjunction, improved mAb production systems will be needed that are capable of generating safe, efficacious antibodies at a scale and cost which will support large scale stockpiling necessary for rapid response to an attack. Plant-based antibody production systems have the capacity to meet this need as they offer specific advantages such as product safety, low cost and ease of scale-up compared to conventional fermentation methods [12]. Plants have proven to be effective systems for producing functional therapeutic mAbs capable of conferring passive protection against bacterial and viral pathogens in animals [13].…”

Molecular Farming: Hosting Plants as Green Factories

“…The biorefinery concept of plant molecular farming will allow the design of low-waste processes in which all raw materials are converted into useful products [23]. The growth of the biofuel, paper manufacturing industry and food/feed additive industries may be involved more in plant molecular farming since the production of nonpharmaceutical antibodies in various formats has been demonstrated for applications in diagnostics, food processing, and quality validation in the past [26][27][28].…”

Plant Molecular Farming: Much More to Know

“…[5] Plants have many advantages over microbe and animal in the production of protein and other biopharmaceuticals like vaccine and plantibody in plants which can be achieved at much lower costs and much lower risk of contamination from human or animal pathogens. additionally, plants possess natural protein storage organs and their seeds are easily distributed, allowing local production.…”