plant as bio reactor and its application

1. PLANTS AS
BIOREACTORS
Shnaid Moosa

2. ■ A Bioreactor is a device or vessels which are designed to
obtain an effective environment for conversion of one
material into some product by appropriate biochemical
reactions
■ Conversion is carried out by …… enzymes,
microorganisms, cells of animals and plants, or sub
cellular structures such as chloroplasts and
mitochondria.
■ Plants can be used as cheap chemical factories that
require only water, minerals, sun light and carbon
dioxide to produce thousands of chemical molecules
with different structures.
■ This process can either be aerobic or anaerobic

3. ■ . There are different bioreactors and they have
different applications are including those for cell
growth, enzyme production, biocatalysis, food
production, milk processing, tissue engineering, algae
production, protein synthesis, and anaerobic digestion
■ Bioreactors are classified depending on their
operational conditions and the nature of the process.
■ Bioreactors can be from different sources like
animals, plants, microbes,etc

4. PLANTS AS BIOREACTORS
■ Plant bioreactors refer to the use of transgenic plants and cell cultures
of plants to make unlimited quantities of commercially important
substances like recombinant proteins including antibodies and vaccines
using biotechnology oriented techniques
■ Using genetic engineering, cereal plants, fruits plants, legumes and
vegetable plants have the capacity to become low cost bioreactors to
make molecules that in the normal scheme of things would not have
been available from plants.
■ Human growth hormone was the first drug that was produced using
plant bioreactors, in this case from the transgenic tobacco
■ Most of the research has been directed towards using plant bioreactors
• Therapeutic proteins
• Edible vaccines
• Antibodies for immunotherapy

5. ■ There are two basic processes that are used to
produce recombinant proteins in plants
1.generating the transgenic plants by stable
integration of transgene into plant genome
2.transient expression of the transgene using
plant viruses as vectors
■ The other techniques used for direct gene
transfer are electroporation, polythene glycol
mediated gene uptake and particle
bombardment.

6. Design gene for
high level
expression
Plant transformation
Regeneration of
Cell
Selection of
transgenic
Growth of plants
in field
Harvesting of plant
materials
Purification of
product
Biosafety &
Functionality test

7. TYPES OF PLANT REACTORS
 There are different plant bioreactors classified based on
where the protein is produced
 SEED-BASED PLANT BIOREACTORS
 PLANT SUSPENSION CULTURES
 HAIRY ROOT SYSTEM BIOREACTOR
 CHLOROPLAST BIOREACTOR

8. CHLOROPLAST BIOREACTOR
■ The nuclear chromosomes of
chloroplasts are inserted with
the foreign genes that are
responsible for required product.
■ Insulin, interferons and other
proteins can be prepared in
chloroplast bioreactor
■ An example is the high yield in
the expression of human serum
albumin protein in chloroplast

9. HAIRY ROOT SYSTEM BIOREACTOR
■ This has rhizosecretion
caused due to infection of
agro bacterium rhizogenes
and is highly stable and
suitable for different
biopharmaceuticals
■ It offers extreme biosynthetic
stability and is suitable for
making biopharmaceuticals
as for example scopolamine
in Hyoscyamus muticus L.
hairy root culture.

10. PLANT SUSPENSION CULTURES
■ In this plant cells are grown under
sterile conditions as suspension or
callus cultures and given the
appropriate hormonal
supplements for growth and are
used in expression of recombinant
proteins, secondary metabolites
and antibodies.
■ For example, is the expression of
80-kDa human lysosomal protein

11. SEED BASED PLANT BIOREACTORS
■ Seed is the most suitable bioreactor because of their large protein
accumulation during its development
■ But specificity of expression and subcellular storage environment are
the factors that will decide which seeds are used for producing
desired products
■ There are two types of seed based plant bioreactors
1) Seed protein storage vacuole bioreactors
2) Seed oil body bioreactors

12. 1. Seed protein storage vacuole bioreactors
The protein storage vacuoles in seeds contain some
dominant sub compartments like matrix, globoid and
crystalloids which are best for storing recombinant
protein. Matrix is suitable for soluble storage proteins,
globoids for hydrolytic enzymes and crystalloids for some
intrinsic protein sequences.
2. Seed oil body bioreactors
■ This bioreactor can store a large amount of
macromolecules. It has oleosin proteins which are ideal
carriers of heterologous proteins encircling the seed oil
body. This also provides recognition signal for lipase
binding during oil mobilization in seedlings

13. ■An example is the successful
expression of the human lysosomal
enzyme alpha-L-iduronidase in
Arabidopsis thaliana seeds
■The advantage of these systems is
that, proteins do not degrade at
ambient temperature and are stable
for long term storage

16. ■ Vaccine antigens
■ Antigens like Insulin, rotavirus enterotoxin, anthrax lethal
factor, HIV antigen, foot and mouth disease virus antigen,
heat stable toxin have been produced in plants.
■ Therapeutic products
■ The first successful production of a functional antibody,
namely a mouse immunoglobulin IgGI in plants, was
reported in 1989.
■ In 1992, C.J. Amtzen and co-workers expressed hepatitis B
surface antigen in tobacco to produce immunologically active
ingredients via genetic engineering of plants

17. ■ Nutritional components
■ β-carotene (Naqvi et al., 2009),
■ Lycopene (Fraser et al., 2002),
■ Flavonoid (Butelli et al., 2008),
■ Nutraceuticals (Kang et al., 2009),
■ Fatty acid (Hoffmann et al., 2008),
■ Vitamins (Nunes et al., 2009),
■ Minerals (Lee & An, 2009) &
■ Carbohydrates (Regina et al., 2006).

18. ■ Biodegradable plastics
 Polyhydroxyalkanoates: biodegradable polymers which
occur naturally in plants.
■ Plant was engineered to produce PHAs or PHBs in
the various plant cell compartments
Industrial products
 Most expensive Drug – Hgc
 hST (Human somatotropin)
 rHLF (Recombinant human lactoferrin)
 Synthetic fiber: Produced from Potato and tobacco.

19. ADVANTAGES
■ They are cost effective,
■ faster than transgenic animals,
■ can produce large biomass
■ pathogens do not effect animals and humans.
■ Easy storage for long time

20. DISADVANTAGES
■ The difference in codons of prokaryotes and
plants can lead to inefficient expression
■ different polysaccharides may be attached to
proteins and some plants may contain allergic
compounds.

21. a) Effect of GM crops on biodiversity and environment
b) Risk that the transgene will transfer to microflora of
human and animals.
c) The GM crops may bring about changes in evolutionary
patterns.
d) There is a risk of transferring allergens from GM food to
human and animals.
e) There is a risk of “gene pollution”
f) Religious issues ……..vegetarian people and some ethnic
groups