Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 19, Issue 31, 2013

Many different plant-based systems have been used to produce recombinant pharmaceutical proteins but only a small number have made the leap from an experimental platform to a viable commercial process. This reflects a combination of factors, principally the technical issues that must be addressed to achieve competitive performance, the economic principles that need to be satisfied to ensure manufacturing processes ar Read More

Four major developments have taken place in the world of Molecular Pharming recently. In the USA, the DARPA initiative challenged plant biotechnology companies to develop strategies for the large-scale manufacture of influenza vaccines, resulting in a successful Phase I clinical trial; in Europe the Pharma-Planta academic consortium gained regulatory approval for a plant-derived monoclonal antibody and completed Read More

The production of recombinant pharmaceutical proteins in plants is entering a new phase with the recent approval of recombinant glucocerebrosidase produced in carrot cells and the successful production of clinical-grade proteins in diverse plant-based production platforms. In the long journey from concept to product, the field of molecular farming has faced technical and economic hurdles, many reflecting the Read More

Many plant species and tissues have been investigated as production and delivery vehicles for recombinant pharmaceutical proteins. Examples include cultured cells, whole aquatic plants and transgenic plants expressing recombinant proteins in their leaves, seeds, fruits or tubers/roots. Each platform has unique properties in terms of production time, environmental containment, scalability and overall costs. Plant tissues also d Read More

Plants are gaining increasingly acceptance as a production platform for recombinant proteins. One reason for this is their ability to carry out posttranslational protein modifications in a similar if not identical way as mammalian cells. The capability of plants to carry out human-like complex glycosylation is well known. Moreover, the targeted manipulation of the plant N-glycosylation pathway allows the production of proteins Read More

In this article, the general principles of genetically modified (GM) plant risk assessment and the regulatory framework for contained use and open field production of plant-made pharmaceuticals/plant-made industrials (PMP/PMI) are described. While significant progress has been made for the containment grown (plant cell culture) production of PMPs, with the first regulatory approval made by the FDA in 2012, the commercializ Read More

Plants have been used for more than 20 years to produce recombinant proteins but only recently has the focus shifted away from proof-of-principle studies (i.e. is my protein expressed and is it functional?) to a serious consideration of the requirements for sustainable productivity and the regulatory approval of pharmaceutical products (i.e. is my protein safe, is it efficacious, and does the product and process comply with r Read More

The production of recombinant proteins in seeds is achieved by driving transgene expression using promoters and protein targeting sequences derived from genes encoding abundant seed storage proteins. This approach is advantageous because high yields, stability and containment are conferred by the accumulation of recombinant proteins in specialized storage compartments such as protein bodies and protein storage Read More

Seeds are organs specialised in accumulating proteins, and they may provide a potential economically viable platform for the large-scale production and storage of many molecules for pharmaceutical and other productive sectors. Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] has a high seed protein content and represents an excellent source of abundant and cheap biomass. Under greenhouse conditions and a daily photoperi Read More

Advances in transient expression technologies have allowed the production of milligram quantities of proteins within a matter of days using only small amounts (tens of grams) of plant tissue. Among the proteins that have been produced using this approach are the structural proteins of viruses which are capable of forming virus-like particles (VLPs). As such particulate structures are potent stimulators of the immune syst Read More

Plants have a demonstrated potential for large-scale, rapid production of recombinant proteins for diverse product applications, including subunit vaccines and monoclonal antibodies. In this field, the accent has recently shifted from the engineering of “edible” vaccines based on stable expression of target protein in transgenic or transplastomic plants to the development of purified formulated vaccines that are delivere Read More

A new approach for super-expression of the influenza virus epitope M2e in plants has been developed on the basis of a recombinant Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV, strain U1) genome designed for Agrobacterium-mediated delivery into the plant cell nucleus. The TMV coat protein (CP) served as a carrier and three versions of the M2e sequence were inserted into the surface loop between amino acid residues 155 and 156. Cyst Read More

In the last two decades the development of efficient plant-based expression strategies and new concepts for the purification of recombinant proteins prompted the application of plant-derived vaccines for veterinary purposes. The expression of recombinant proteins in plants possesses advantages over conventional eukaryotic expression systems and therefore represents a versatile tool for the production of “edible” an Read More

Molecular farming is a technology that is very well suited to being applied in developing countries, given the reasonably high level of expertise in recombinant plant development in many centers. In addition, there is an urgent need for products such as inexpensive vaccines and therapeutics for livestock and for some human diseases – and especially those that do not occur or are rare in developed regions. South Africa and A Read More

Secondary products are small molecular weight compounds produced by secondary metabolic pathways in plants. They are regarded as non-essential for normal growth and development but often confer benefits such as defense against pathogens, pests and herbivores or the attraction of pollinators. Many secondary products affect the survival and/or behavior of microbes, insects and mammals and they often have usef Read More

Molecules derived from plants make up a sizeable proportion of the drugs currently available on the market. These include a number of secondary metabolite compounds the monetary value of which is very high. New pharmaceuticals often originate in nature. Approximately 50% of new drug entities against cancer or microbial infections are derived from plants or micro-organisms. However, these compounds are structurally Read More