Green and fluffy Bioreactor: Moss produces human proteins

At first glance, Physcomitrella patens moss and humans have nothing in common. All the more surprising are the results obtained at the Higher Technical School of the Swiss Confederation in Zurich under the supervision of Professor Martin Fussenegger. When the unmodified human and mammalian genes are transfected into the moss genome, moss easily produces proteins encoded by foreign DNA.

Research in this area has lost popularity since it was shown that higher plants are not able to produce functioning mammalian proteins. The reason lies in the different architecture of the starting and ending sequences of the genes of mammals, plants, fungi and bacteria. These sequences are responsible for the recognition of the gene by the corresponding proteins, the structure of the synthesized protein and the correct protein transport in the cell. The more organisms are evolutionarily removed from each other, the more their starting and final gene sequences differ. Therefore, as a rule, before transfection into a foreign organism, the gene needs modification. The big surprise was that such a modification is not necessary if the mammalian gene is introduced into the moss genome.

The explanation of this phenomenon, given by Professor Ralf Reski from the University of Freiburg in Breisgau, is based on the archaic genetic apparatus of mosses. Mosses underwent the last significant change about 450 million years ago, when they changed their habitat from aquatic to terrestrial and adapted to new conditions. Since then, mosses have not experienced significant changes, both external and genetic.

The mechanism of gene reading and protein synthesis in mosses is more complicated than in higher plants, which have evolved for almost half a billion years, adapting to various living conditions, and allows mosses not only to read, but also to translate foreign genes into proteins, despite the fact that these properties, most likely, have never been used by mosses in natural conditions.

It is possible that Physcomitrella patens moss with its ability to produce mammalian proteins will help in solving the problem of deficiency in the production of proteins of therapeutic importance. An example of such a protein is insulin, which is necessary for diabetics to maintain blood sugar levels.

Currently, the production of proteins for therapeutic purposes is very expensive and is carried out mainly in cultured mammalian cells. The volumes of such production cannot meet the existing demand. And the complexity of the production itself makes it almost impossible in technically undeveloped countries.

Thus, moss, which needs only water, light and mineral salts to produce a given protein, has excellent prospects as a cheap and simple bioreactor. In the near future, additional studies will be carried out to confirm the possibility of such an application of moss.

Article by Gitzinger et al. Functional cross-kingdom conservation of mammalian and moss (Physcomitrella patens) transcription, translation and secrecy machinery is published in Plant Biotechnology Journal.

Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru Based on ScienceDaily: Biotechnology: Engineered Moss Can Produce Human Proteins12.05.2009