Increasing Recombinant Protein Accumulation in Soybean Seeds

Seeds are ideal platform for the cost-efficient recombinant protein production, as they are designed for maximum protein synthesis and accumulation. The difficulty in engineering seeds as biofactory is that they are developmentally determinant and evolved in such a manner that the maturation of each seed is essentially identical. Seeds have evolved to accumulate fats, oils and carbohydrates in addition to proteins, leaving little cellular space to add additional products resulting from transgene expression.

Monica Schimdt and Eliot Herman of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in the United States, in a study published by the Plant Biotech Journal, presented results that indicate the possibility to increase the yield of foreign protein accumulation from 1.6 percent to approximately 7 percent by trading the capacity for intrinsic protein synthesis for the capacity to produce foreign proteins. The scientists demonstrated increased accumulation of a green fluorescent protein under the control of a glycinin (major storage protein in soybeans) promoter. In applications that include production of enzymes and biocatalysts, the scale, low-cost production, and ease of shipping and processing conferred using soybean seeds can be employed to an advantage.

Subscribers can download the paper at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121372099/PDFSTART The abstract is available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121372099/abstract