GM Tomato Producing Functional Human Antitrypsin

GM plants hold a promising alternative for production of pharmaceutical proteins. Compared to other systems, the use of GM plants offers advantages like the feasibility of low-cost and large-scale production and reduced risk of contamination with human pathogens. A wide array of plant-derived pharmaceutical proteins has been developed to treat diseases such as lymphoma, and cystic fibrosis.

Scientists from the Indian National Botanical Research Institute have developed transgenic tomato lines producing a functional human alpha-1-antitrypsin (AAT) protein. AAT is the most common serine protease inhibitor in the human plasma. Deficiency in AAT results to diseases like liver cancer, pulmonary emphysema, arthritis and dermatitis. Previous efforts to source AAT from transgenic bacteria, yeast cells and animals proved to be unsuccessful. The AAT derived from these hosts were either unstable, biologically inactive or mixed with immunogenic impurities.

The transgenes were found to be stably expressed in successive generations. AAT from the GM tomato lines exhibited high specific activity. On the average, 195 milligram of AAT can be obtained per kilogram of tomato leaves. The abstract of the article published by the journal Transgenic Research is available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/053336v077647j05/?p=afd6add86e7f4e06ad327a2c504f690a&pi=2