Plant platforms for producing recombinant proteins for the pharmaceutical industry

Abstract

Plant biotechnology succeeded in combining new developments related to plant production systems with the need for recombinant proteins in the pharmaceutical industry. The plant platform turned out to be a valid production alternative mainly
because it had adequate machinery for protein synthesis, including glycoproteins and multimeric proteins. Among the advantages of these systems are: biosafety, since there is no possibility of contamination with pathogens, prions, oncogenes or
endotoxins; the ease of scaling up, in the case of field crops, as it is done with low cost increases; the development of the production process under controlled environmental conditions, in the case of in vitro cultures, being able to work under conditions of Good Laboratory Practices and Good Manufacturing Practices and the transitory expression, in the case of production of therapeutic proteins, which is done very quickly. One of the limitations of proteins produced in vegetables is the difference in glycosylation with respect to those of animal origin. This has been solved by the inactivation of plant-specific glycosyltransferases and/or their complementation with heterologous animal glycosyltransferases. Another limitation of the commercial exploitation of protein production in plants is its low yields. However, strategies have been developed at the genetic level, the expression mechanism (stable or transient), the culture conditions, and the culture system to increase them. This is how, through a stable or transient transformation of different species, a wide range of recombinant proteins has been produced in agronomic or in vitro cultures. Functional proteins of animal origin such as antibodies, antigens, cytokines, growth hormones, enzymes, biopolymers, and other industrial proteins have been expressed in species as diverse as Nicotiana tabacum, N. benthamiana, Daucus carota, Lactuca sativa, Lycopresicon esculentum, Solanum tuberosum, Oryza sativa, Zea mays, Glycine max, among others.