Algae show potential to produce human therapeutic proteins
Eurekalert: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-03/uoc–ssp030810.php
Reference
Research conducted by a collaborative team involving University of California, San Diego who headed the study, and scientists at The Scripps Research Institute, San Diego biofuel company Sapphire Energy and ProtElix, a protein engineering company in Hayward, CA. The research was published online this week in Plant Biotechnology Journal.
TechNyou note
People often question why researchers genetically modify plants to produde human therapeutic proteins – once they actually become aware that this can occur. It is something they find scary, or cautiously unacceptable. This media release adds context to the debate for this type of research. See following quote from media release:
“Currently, human therapeutic proteins are primarily produced from either bacteria or mammalian cell culture. Complex mammalian proteins and monoclonal antibodies are primarily produced by the culture of transgeneic mammalian cells, while simpler proteins are generally produced by E. coli.
“Due to high capital and media costs, and the inherent complexity of mammalian cell culture, proteins produced by mammalian cell culture are very expensive. Bacterial production is generally more economical in terms of media components, but bacteria are often inefficient at producing properly folded complex proteins, requiring a denaturation and renaturation step that adds significant costs to bacterial protein production.”