The production of recombinant pharmaceutical proteins in plants

Abstract

Imagine a world in which any protein, either naturally occurring or designed by man, could be produced safely, inexpensively and in almost unlimited quantities using only simple nutrients, water and sunlight. This could one day become reality as we learn to harness the power of plants for the production of recombinant proteins on an agricultural scale. Molecular farming in plants has already proven to be a successful way of producing a range of technical proteins. The first plant-derived recombinant pharmaceutical proteins are now approaching commercial approval, and many more are expected to follow.

Arabidopsis thaliana plants expressing Rift Valley fever virus antigens: Mice exhibit systemic immune responses as the result of oral administration of the transgenic plants

“…The feasibility of oral delivery of plant-expressed recombinant viral subunit vaccines for human and animal use has been demonstrated in several pre-clinical and clinical studies [11]. In this work, we have developed transgenic production of RVFV antigens in A. thaliana…”

“…Development of transgenic plants that could be used for oral delivery of recombinant vaccine antigens is an interesting strategy for obtaining cost-effective and logistically advantageous vaccines [11]. Various viral proteins have successfully been expressed in plants and have shown antigenic properties in animal experiments [12][13][14][15][16]17].…”

Extremely High-Level and Rapid Transient Protein Production in Plants without the Use of Viral Replication

“…For this reason, a number of eukaryotic protein production systems have been developed (Aricescu et al, 2006;Yin et al, 2007). Plants and plant cells possess many advantages over other eukaryotic expression hosts, such as high biomass, ease of scaleup, cost effectiveness, and low risk of contamination (Ma et al, 2003;Twyman et al, 2003). Although much work has been carried out using stably transformed plants, the significantly reduced development and production timelines make transient plant-based expression a particularly attractive option for the production of proteins of both commercial and academic interest.…”

Coordinated protein co‐expression in plants by harnessing the synergy between an intein and a viral 2A peptide

“…Furthermore, we demonstrated important practical applications of the IntF2A technology beyond just proof of concepts with reporters, by successfully producing a correctly assembled and biologically functional IgG antibody molecule. Mass production of pharmaceutically relevant proteins such as antibodies in plants through molecular farming, especially with transient expression systems, has drawn increasing interests due to its simplicity and low‐cost nature compared with the conventional microbial and mammalian cell culture production methods (Arntzen, 2015; Ma et al ., 2003). …”