Humanized yeast
Yeast with a human gene has been created in Russia for medical purposes
The method of production of special molecules that accelerate tissue healing was developed by VyatSU scientists. According to them, the technology will make it possible to produce drugs in Russia that are in demand in the cultivation of artificial organs and in traumatology.
Platelet growth factor is a protein molecule that accelerates the development of fibroblasts and other "building blocks" used by the body to heal damaged tissues. In the human body, this molecule is produced in very small quantities.
Drugs based on platelet growth factors are widely used in traumatology and regenerative medicine, the scientists said. According to them, such drugs have a strong therapeutic effect, and are also used in the cultivation of artificial organs and tissues from stem cells.
Specialists of Vyatka State University are developing a technology that will allow the industrial production of platelet growth factor. According to the authors, the technology is focused on import substitution.
Our method has analogues in the world, but for various reasons, foreign medicines with growth factor are difficult to access in Russia today. It is possible to buy the molecules themselves abroad, but they are not cheap, and supplies may stop at any moment. According to our forecasts, the new technology can become two to three times more productive than foreign ones," said Anna-Anastasia Mysterova, a junior researcher at the Department of Biotechnology at the Institute of Biology and Biotechnology of Vyatka State University.
The source of the valuable substance was yeast of the Pichia pastoris species, in the genome of which scientists placed a cloned human gene encoding platelet growth factor. The addition of methyl alcohol, which this type of unicellular fungi uses to produce energy and carbon, causes genetically modified yeast to synthesize growth factor, which is then purified by chromatography.
According to the specialists of VyatGU, they managed to obtain the growth factor PDGF-BB with a purity of more than 98 percent and high stability. Scientists have created a prototype of the drug in the form of a gel with a growth factor content of 100 micrograms/ml.
Our method of extracting growth factor from yeast has no analogues in the scientific literature. Our solution as a whole is likely to be of interest to those countries and companies that are forced to "catch up" in this segment of biotechnology, taking care of economy, — said Anna-Anastasia Mysterova.
In the future, the research team intends to improve the proposed technology.
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