Plants as Protein Factories: Antioxidant Boosts the Yield of Valuable Biologics
Published:23 Mar.2021 Source:University of Tsukuba
Producing high-value pharmaceutical proteins in plants -- sometimes called "molecular pharming" -- offers advantages over some other manufacturing methods, notably the low cost and ease of scaling up production to meet demand. But expressing large quantities of "foreign" proteins in plants can also sometimes lead to problems, such as dehydration and premature cell death in the leaves.
Now a team led by Professor Kenji Miura of the University of Tsukuba has discovered that spraying leaves with high concentrations of the antioxidant ascorbic acid (vitamin C) can increase protein production three-fold or even more. They recently published their findings in Plant Physiology.