Production of human recombinant collagen in the milk of transgenic animals
AssigneesCohesion Technologies, Inc., Pharming B.V.
InventorRichard A. Berg
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Production of human procollagen or collagen in cells which ordinarily do not produce these molecules is effected by constructing expression systems compatible with mammary glands of non-human mammals. For example, expression systems can be microinjected into fertilized oocytes and reimplanted in foster mothers and carried to term in order to obtain transgenic non-human mammals capable of producing milk containing recombinant human procollagen or collagen. Human procollagen or collagen produced in this manner can be made of a single collagen type uncontaminated by other human or non-human collagens.
Claims8
A method of obtaining milk, comprising the step of:
- recovering milk from a transgenic nonhuman mammal whose somatic and germ cells contain an expression system comprising a coding nucleotide sequence encoding a human procollagen polypeptide chain operably linked to a control nucleotide sequence that effects expression specifically in milk protein-secreting epithelial cells of a mammary gland in said mammal, and said cells express said coding nucleotide sequence to produce said polypeptide chain, and secrete a single type of human procollagen, collagen, or a mixture thereof into the milk of said mammal, wherein said milk comprises trimeric collagen, procollagen or mixture thereof in a recoverable amount without extracellular aggregation which would prevent excretion from said mammary gland.
Milk from a transgenic nonhuman mammal whose somatic and germ cells contain an expression system comprising a coding nucleotide sequence encoding a human procollagen polypeptide chain operably linked to a control nucleotide sequence that effects expression specifically in milk protein-secreting epithelial cells of a mammary gland in said mammal, and said cells express said coding nucleotide sequence to produce said polypeptide chain, and secrete a single type of human procollagen, collagen, or a mixture thereof into the milk of said mammal, wherein said milk comprises trimeric collagen, procollagen or mixture thereof in a recoverable amount without extracellular aggregation which would prevent excretion from said mammary gland.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.