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Plant cell cultures for the production of recombinant proteins

Nature Biotechnology volume 22, pages 1415–1422 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

The use of whole plants for the synthesis of recombinant proteins has received a great deal of attention recently because of advantages in economy, scalability and safety compared with traditional microbial and mammalian production systems. However, production systems that use whole plants lack several of the intrinsic benefits of cultured cells, including the precise control over growth conditions, batch-to-batch product consistency, a high level of containment and the ability to produce recombinant proteins in compliance with good manufacturing practice. Plant cell cultures combine the merits of whole-plant systems with those of microbial and animal cell cultures, and already have an established track record for the production of valuable therapeutic secondary metabolites. Although no recombinant proteins have yet been produced commercially using plant cell cultures, there have been many proof-of-principle studies and several companies are investigating the commercial feasibility of such production systems.

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Figure 1: Overview of biopharmaceutical production in plant cells.

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  1. Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME), Worringerweg 1, Aachen, D-52074, Germany

    Stephan Hellwig, Jürgen Drossard & Rainer Fischer

  2. Department of Biology, University of York, Heslington, YO10 5DD, York, United Kingdom

    Richard M Twyman

  3. Institut für Biologie VII (Molekulare Biotechnologie), Aachen Technical University, Aachen, D-52056, Germany

    Rainer Fischer

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Correspondence to Rainer Fischer.

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Hellwig, S., Drossard, J., Twyman, R. et al. Plant cell cultures for the production of recombinant proteins. Nat Biotechnol 22, 1415–1422 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt1027

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