Question

1) Adalimuman (HUMIRA) is a profitable monoclonal antibody therapeutic that is used to treat inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. It is a recombinant protein made in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. After the patent expires, you see an opportunity to make some money by producing producing adalimumab in plants (e.g. N. benthamiana). The amino acid sequences of the heavy and light chains of adalimumab are available. Starting there, describe in conceptual detail the steps you will perform in order to produce this recombinant protein in N. benthamiana. Note that N-linked glycosylation of the heavy chain is an issue to consider. And discuss how you will alter plant-specific glycosylation to make the protein more human-like. plant related

Answer 1

The plant-derived monoclonal antibodies are cheaper and easy to produce when compared with the human cell line-derived monoclonal antibodies.

In plants, monoclonal antibodies are usually produced by inserting viral vectors into plant leaves that cause production on monoclonal antibodies in plants. We can isolate the monoclonal antibodies produced in plants use them for further investigation.

The N-linked glycosylation of heavy chains in plant-derived monoclonal antibodies is one of the major issues. N-glycosylation may reduce the therapeutic activity or may produce adverse effects when a monoclonal antibody is used in humans to treat disease.

To overcome the N-glycosylation, the help of glycoengineering. In this, the plant-specific glycan genes are knocking out or mammalian glycan specific genes are inserted into plants.

This results in the production of monoclonal antibody protein that has more human-like antibody properties and therapeutically effective with lesser adverse effects.