Molecular Pharming

PBL’s Molecular Pharming tool was invented by George Lomonossoff and Frank Sainsbury at the John Innes Centre. It is a non-replicating transient expression system based on Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of plant leaves for high-level production of proteins in a matter of days. The system deploys modified sequences from Cowpea mosaic virus (CPMV) to boost translational efficiency and hence, the system is named CPMV-hypertrans or CPMV-HT.

The main advantages of HT-CPMV compared to other protein over-expression systems are:

• Extreme high level expression of up to 30% total soluble protein
  • Quick and easy to use system
  • Easy cloning (series of binary vectors called pEAQ)
  • Fast expression through agroinfiltration
  • Total time required for expression and protein recovery is only 2 weeks
• Proven to be effective with a wide range of proteins (including multimeric and heteromeric proteins, as well as co-expression of multiple proteins)
• Non-infective viral-derived expression system

Schematic representation of Molecular Pharming using CPMV-HT

Easy Cloning. A schematic representation of the Transferred-DNA (T-DNA) of pEAQ-HT vectors is shown below. RB and LB represent the right and left borders of the T-DNA. The green arrow represents an eukaryotic promoter and the red box represents a terminator.

 

CPMV-HT is based on two patented PBL technologies:

• PBL Tech ID: 07.439 - CPMV-HT
• PBL Tech ID: 99.194 - Suppressors of Gene Silencing

Further information can be found on the related technology pages.