Plant-produced biopharmaceuticals

The term biopharmaceutical is commonly used to denote a therapeutic protein produced by recombinant (genetic) engineering. In this process, genes encoding proteins or peptides of interest from humans or other organisms are identified, cloned, inserted into an expression vector and the protein or enzyme produced within a prokaryotic or eukaryotic expression host production platform organism. Such production platforms may typically be bacteria, yeasts, insects, mammals or plants. Batch cultures of cell suspensions are also commonly used for large-scale production of recombinant therapeutic proteins, a method often referred to as fermentation culture. Bacteria and yeast can be grown in closed-loop bioreactors, as can insect, mammal and plant cell-lines, which are generated from whole organisms. This ensures several generations of stable cell line propagation, allowing production of the protein or enzyme of interest.