Abstract
The demand for recombinant proteins in terms of quality, quantity, and diversity is increasing steadily, which is attracting global attention for the development of new recombinant protein production technologies and the engineering of conventional established expression systems based on bacteria or mammalian cell cultures. Since the advancements of plant genetic engineering in the 1980s, plants have been used for the production of economically valuable, biologically active non-native proteins or biopharmaceuticals, the concept termed as plant molecular farming (PMF). PMF is considered as a cost-effective technology that has grown and advanced tremendously over the past two decades. The development and improvement of the transient expression system has significantly reduced the protein production timeline and greatly improved the protein yield in plants. The major factors that drive the plant-based platform towards potential competitors for the conventional expression system are cost-effectiveness, scalability, flexibility, versatility, and robustness of the system. Many biopharmaceuticals including recombinant vaccine antigens, monoclonal antibodies, and other commercially viable proteins are produced in plants, some of which are in the pre-clinical and clinical pipeline. In this review, we consider the importance of a plant- based production system for recombinant protein production, and its potential to produce biopharmaceuticals is discussed.
Highlights
Recombinant proteins are complex exogenous (“foreign”) proteins that are produced in expression hosts, and mainly used as medical diagnostic reagents and in human healthcare as vaccines, drugs, or monoclonal antibodies [1]
Bacterial expression systems offer rapid production with high product yield, whereas Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia pastoris offer post-translational modifications (PTMs) which are essential for functional activity of the recombinant proteins [3]
As the progress is continuously being made in this ever-growing field, here in this review, we summarize the importance and prospects of plant expression systems for the cost-effective production of recombinant proteins
Summary
Recombinant proteins are complex exogenous (“foreign”) proteins that are produced in expression hosts, and mainly used as medical diagnostic reagents and in human healthcare as vaccines, drugs, or monoclonal antibodies [1]. The industry is focusing mainly on already established production platforms using prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression host systems such as Escherichia coli, a selection of yeast, insect, and mammalian cell cultures, due to their well-defined processes in-line with current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) [2]. Bacterial expression systems offer rapid production with high product yield, whereas Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia pastoris (yeast) offer post-translational modifications (PTMs) which are essential for functional activity of the recombinant proteins [3]. All the production systems have their own merits and setbacks such as production time, high operating costs, protein yield, chances of contamination with pathogenic microorganisms, limited post-translational modifications, and regulatory approval. Monoclonal antibodies, and industrial enzymes expressed in plants are described
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