Biopharmaceuticals therapeutic proteins, transgenic

This chapter illustrated the broad spectrum of uses for plant-derived vaccines and therapeutic proteins. Many of the biopharmaceuticals listed in this chapter were developed in transgenic tobacco or potato plants. While tobacco is not ideal for the expression of vaccine proteins nor is raw potato ideal for oral consumption, they are both relatively easy to work with and have been well characterized, making them useful for proof-of-concept studies. The use of plants for production systems and delivery vehicles holds great promise for future biopharmaceutical development. Proteins can be produced in plants while remaining biologically functional they can be scaled up for large production and purified inexpensively and with relative ease. The following chapters describe the many attributes of plant-made biopharmaceuticals in more detail. 

Transgenic plants present enormous potential to become one of the most cost-effective and safe systems for large-scale production of proteins for industrial, pharmaceutical, veterinary, and agricultural uses. Over the past decade, much progress has been made with respect to the development of vaccines, antibodies, and other therapeutic proteins. Biopharmaceuticals in Plants Toward the Next Century of Medicine provides a comprehensive survey of ail major aspects of the development and production of plant-made biopharmaceuticals. 

As shown in Table 5.1, there are over 130 of products for medical applications that have been - or are being - considered as candidates for production using transgenic systems. In this section, we will discuss those biopharmaceuticals that are currently commercially available for non-hu-man use (plant-derived avidin, trypsin, and aprotinin), and one product that has been submitted for regulatory approval, namely milk-derived antithrombin. Ten therapeutic proteins derived from transgenic systems that were (or are) included in human clinical testing will be also discussed. These products are being considered for the treatment of inherited diseases (milk-de-... 

The main focus on modem biopharmaceuticals should be directed towards novel products which will be either monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, cell and gene therapeutics, or viral products. Apart from product classes, new approaches to manufacture are also advancing, with transgenic animals and plants complementing existing cell culture-based expression (see Part IV, Chapters 5-11). (For a recent review, see Ref [8].)... 

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