Plant-based Expression of Biopharmaceuticals

Transgenic Plants as Biofactories for the Production of Biopharmaceuticals: A Case Study of Human Placental Lactogen

“…Hairy root cultures, grown in hormone-free medium, are genetically stable over time and allow uniform expression of proteins at high level in relatively short periods of time (Franconi et al, 2010). Secretion of proteins is also allowed in root cultures which can be cultured in bioreactors or in hydroponic tanks from where they take water and nutrients while releasing proteins continuously (Knäblein, 2005). Shooty teratomas are generated from transgenic seedlings co-cultured with A. tumefaciens strain T37.…”

“…It can be cultured during its complete lifecycle, but when cultured in liquid medium vegetative growth is favored (Franconi et al, 2010). The fact that P. patens is grown in small plant fragments, and not as protoplast, provides genetic stability avoiding somaclonal variation (Knäblein, 2005). The moss is photoautotrophic and only requires inorganic salts, water and CO 2 for growth, so it is easily cultured in stirred glass tanks or tubular photobioreactors.…”

Engineering of Plants for Efficient Production of Therapeutics

“…However, these require the same scale-up cost as CHO cells like fermenters but need basic nutrient requirements and ease the downstream purification as it lacks mammalian pathogen contamination. Increasing demand for biomedicines has been linked with expensiveness and ineffectiveness of the current production strategies such as yeast, bacteria, and animal cell culture with transgenic animals [ 3 – 5 ]. In contrast, plants have the upper hand as a production system for desired recombinant protein at a large scale in terms of safety concern, applicability, and cost-effectiveness.…”