US team make human ‘biocollagen’ in plants
pharmafile | July 5, 2011 | News story | Manufacturing and Production |Â Â collegen, cosmetic surgery, manufacturing and production news, pharma manufacturing newsÂ
A team of researchers in the USA have successfully synthesised human collagen in transgenic maize seeds, offering a potential alternative to animal-derived material for pharmaceutical applications.
Synthetic collagen has a wide range of applications in drug delivery and reconstructive and cosmetic surgery, as well as in the food industry, but at the moment is almost entirely sourced from animals.
“There are risks associated with this collagen containing infectious agents or being rejected by the body,” a team of researchers, led by Dr Kan Wang of Iowa State University, said.
Recombinant collagens have already been produced in mammalian, insect and plant cell culture, but growing the material in transgenic plants has advantages in terms of lower cost, higher capacity, a smaller risk of contamination with infective agents or toxins and easier storage prior to processing, according to the team.
One downside of using transgenic plants – which the researchers have now overcome – is that they have been unable to make modifications to the collagen protein that are essential for proper functioning in human cells.
Working in collaboration with industrial partners, the researchers added a gene, which codes for the alpha 1 chain of human collagen, to maize along with genes which make another protein called human prolyl 4-hydroxylase.
This second protein was able to hydroxylate approximately the same percentage of prolines in the recombinant collagen alpha 1 chain as is seen for human collagen made in human cells.
“Producing human collagen in maize seeds is an inexpensive alternative to using animal-derived collagen,” said Dr Wang.
“The seeds are easy to grow, process, and store. Our transgenic plant system is also able to produce a protein with human-like modifications making it a better choice for a wide range of applications.”
Market research firm GIA estimates that the global market for collagen and other biomaterials such as hyaluronic acid will be worth around $2 billion by 2015 after a slump in 2009-2010, driven by new applications in applications such as dermal implants, implantable devices and tissue engineering.
The research is published in the journal BMC Biotechnology (2011, 11:69).
Phil Taylor
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