Plataformas de expresión en plantas de péptidos humanos terapéuticos: expresión transitoria y estable

Abstract

In plant expression platforms of therapeutic human peptides: transient and stable expression. Plants represent an alternative expression system for the production of complex heterologous proteins such as vaccines, antigens, antibodies, erithropoietin and human insulin. These living systems offer many advantages over other traditional expression systems based on the cultivation of cells of bacterial, yeast, insect or mammal origin: low production costs, a reduced time to reach big scale production, as well as proper expression, modification and folding of the recombinant protein, along with a complete lack of contamination risks with human pathogens. In the last decade, genetic engineering of plants has made a wide use of the stable expression systems based on the phytopathogenic bacteria Agrobacterium tumefaciens, besides the transient expression based on plant virus vectors aimed at producing beneficial compounds for the health and well being of humans. Use of these viral elements in the production systems of recombinant proteins has simplified both the manipulation and infection processes of plants with the chimeric gene. Furthermore, the analysis of immunogenicity displayed by plant glicans when present in heterologous peptides has allowed understanding which molecular pathways are more convenient to express, fold, compartmentalize and increase the accumulation of the protein of interest. With this short review we intend to provide the readers detailed information about the strategies of heterologous expression that make use of plant systems, the main therapeutic agents developed based on these systems and the biological importance of the post-translational modifications of the recombinant peptides.