Biotechnology of future: Moss producing therapeutic proteins
It may not be long ,when moss Physcomitrella patens can be used to produce mammalian proteins on large industrial scale. Recently researchers headed by Martin Fussenegger, Professor of Chemical and Bioengineering at ETH Zurich and PhD student Marc Gitzinger as lead author showed that moss has the unique ability to transcribe and translate mammalian genes. This is not something common as the same process does not work when a mammalian gene is put into “higher” flowering plants. The lack of producing foreign proteins makes sense also as start and finish sequences of the genes of animals, plants, fungi and bacteria are considerably different.They are responsible for ensuring that a gene in the organism is recognized as such, and the proteins encoded by it are produced in the correct amount and are released from the cell. The more remote the relationship between living organisms, the greater the difference between these sequences.
But things turned out to be different in the case of moss Physcomitrella patens ,in spite of the fact that Plants and mammals are separated by a huge evolutionary distance. This ability of moss producing mammalian proteins can be used to manufacture mammalian proteins and could help to satisfy the large worldwide demand for therapeutic proteins. Now a days mammalian cells are used to perform this job,which are very expensive to culture. In contrast, the moss Physcomitrella patens is comparatively undemanding. It needs water, a couple of nutrient salts and some light to allow it to flourish and produce proteins. Some more research in this area will be needed before moss can be used as an alternative to mammalian cells to produce therapeutic proteins on a large scale.
Reference :
Functional cross-kingdom conservation of mammalian and moss (Physcomitrella patens) transcription, translation and secretion machineries
Marc Gitzinger,Juliana Parsons, Ralf Reski and Martin Fussenegger
Plant Biotechnology Journal, Volume 7 Issue 1, Pages 73 – 86
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