Plant based therapeutic protein omit need for fermentation. It is advantageous and cost effective. Is different different glycosylation pattern is holding it back? Or productivity (yield) is limiting factor. Ebola medicine Zmapp is produced in tobacco plant. Still very less no. of candidate when compare to production from E.Coli or CHO.
What are factors holding it back?
Some of the factors might be:
1. Low speed of production compared to the microbial expression system
2. Low expression in most cases
3. Low yield after extraction and purification
4. Stability issues
5. Standardization of doses in case of proteins expressed using edible plants and/or edible parts of plants, etc
The first plant-made biologic was approved in 2012 by the US-FDA, and this was Elelysio® (taliglucerase alfa) indicated for the treatment of rare Gaucher disease. Elelysio® is made by growing the enzyme glucocerebrosidase inside carrot cells. The growth medium used is made from sucrose, vitamins, minerals, and water. The plant cell-based production system uses multiple 800-liter disposable bioreactors that are actually plastic bags. It seems that plant-cell-based plastic-bag bioreactor technology offers significantly lower upfront capital and production costs, is scalable, maintains protein assembly and post-translational modifications including glycosylation, and can be used for enzymes, cytokines, hormones, and monoclonal antibodies.
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- Analytical Chemistry
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