recoding plants as factories for high value products
The problem
Engineered proteins are important but expensive to produce at large scale
Current production methods
Engineered proteins are essential and increasingly critical components of diagnostics, therapies, bioindustrial processes and materials.
They are generally produced by culture of animal or microbial cells in bioreactors, or by robotic handling for transient expression in plants.
This introduces high capital and running costs and inflates the cost of the reagents (retail prices reach over $1,000 per milligram). This limits their wider use, and prevents equitable global access to these important reagents.
Target proteins
Protein cytokines, important for stem cell engineering and the growing “cultured meat” sector.
Single-chain antibody reagents required for diagnostics, molecular assays and affinity purification.
Vaccine components, including capsid-like multi-protein assemblies for multivalent binding and visual markers.
Components of therapeutics for veterinary and human use.
Toxin proteins for antivenom production.
Industrial enzymes.
Engineered structural proteins, including silks and nano-scaffolds.
The solution
Simple, fast plants as programmable bioreactors
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Plantcode has developed new methods for explosively fast, soil-free growth of a new plant host, Marchantia polymorpha. The plants can be engineered to hyper-express high value biological molecules. Plants create effective self-assembled, light-powered bioreactors for highly scaleable, low cost bioproduction.
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Chloroplasts provide a platform for low-cost, large-scale production of proteins. Chloroplasts have a tiny genome which is present in very high copy numbers in plant cells. There is no gene-silencing in the chloroplast, and the organelles are capable of expressing prodigious amounts of foreign protein at little cost to the plant.
Marchantia provides the fastest system for chloroplast transformation due to its extraordinary capacity for regeneration and growth.
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We have developed new mRNA technologies for ensuring very high level gene expression in plants (>15% soluble protein). Plants contain high levels of expressed protein in sap that can be readily processed at industrial scales.
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The protein-producing bioreactors are the plants themelves, self-assembled as they grow rapidly in a 24-day harvest cycle on hybrid membranes, requiring only light and a simple hydroponic media. The plants are true-breeding, and can be continuously re-planted for bulk production.
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Food processing techniques allow large scale extraction, clarification and purification of native proteins. The target proteins are coded for cost-free affinity purification and release. The process can be scaled cheaply.
Pilot plant
Build platform for bulk production of high-value engineered proteins
We have combined advanced engineering of a new fast-growing plant system with vertical farming for high-yield production of engineered proteins.
A pilot facility will bring together DNA assembly, chloroplast transformation, quality control and storage of germplasm, and vertical farming of plant lines for protein isolation and distribution - as a platform for low-cost, large-scale production of high-value bioactives.
