CANADA
Researchers at Western University and Lawson Health Research Institute are using tobacco plants as ‘green bioreactors’ to produce an anti-inflammatory protein with powerful therapeutic potential.
The plants are being used to produce large quantities of a human protein called Interleukin 37, or IL-37. The protein is naturally produced in the human kidney in very small quantities and has powerful anti-inflammatory and immune-suppressing properties, providing the potential for treating a number of inflammatory and autoimmune disorders like type 2 diabetes, stroke, dementia, and arthritis.
This work is the first of its kind to demonstrate that this functional human protein can be produced in plant cells. “The plants offer the potential to produce pharmaceuticals in a way that is much more affordable than current methods,” said Shengwu Ma, PhD, adjunct professor in the Department of Biology at Western and scientist at Lawson. “Tobacco is high-yield, and we can temporarily transform the plant so that we can begin making the protein of interest within two weeks.”