A joint research team led by Dr. Hye-seon Cho of the Plant Systems Engineering Research Center and Dr. Sang-jik Kim of the Synthetic Biology Research Center of the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology announced that they have developed a plant cell-based viral diagnostic antibody production platform that significantly improved cost-efficiency and sensitivity.
From left, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Senior Technician Sangjik Kim of the Synthetic Biology Research Center, Senior Researcher Hyeseon Cho of the Plant Systems Engineering Research Center, and Researcher Hyunji Park.
It is expected that in the future it can be used as a key technology for the early diagnosis of various infectious diseases. One of the widely used methods to determine whether a person is infected with a virus is to check for antibodies produced in an immune response during a viral infection.
In the production of antibody diagnostic kits, a reagent that chemically combines peroxidase, an enzyme that promotes the reaction with viral antibodies, is usually used, but the antibody and peroxidase must be produced separately during the process and the disadvantage is that the homogeneity it is low if combined later. .
To overcome this problem, attempts have been made to produce proteins combining peroxidase and antibodies in animal cells, but the low activity of peroxidase has limited its use in highly sensitive diagnostic reagents.
Development of a platform for the production of viral diagnostic antibodies based on a plant expression system A. Schematic diagrams of FMD viral antibody production across plant cells B to C. Confirmation of antibody protein expression (B) of foot-and-mouth disease virus and antibody peroxidase (HRP) activity / Document abstract
As a result, the research team developed a protein production platform that fused peroxidase and antibodies into one through a plant expression system.
Using genetic recombination technology, the research team produced horseradish peroxidase (HRP, a widely used peroxidase) and a viral antibody as a single fusion protein in the tobacco plant Nicotiana benthamiana.
The foot-and-mouth disease virus diagnostic antibody produced through this process has 100 times the sensitivity of existing animal cell-based diagnostic antibodies, raising the possibility of its use as a cost-effective diagnostic technology for producing antibody proteins.
Dr Sang-jik Kim said: “It has significant advantages over the chemical combination method of existing antibodies and peroxidase as it is cheaper and has high diagnostic activity,” adding: “It can be used in various basic research such as the development of reagents for disease diagnosis, biochemistry and molecular biology in the future.” “I hope so,” he said.
The results of this study were published in the international journal ‘Plant Biotechnology Journal (IF 13.8)’ in the field of botany.
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