Expression of human milk proteins in transgenic plants
AssigneeVentria Bioscience
InventorsNing Huang, Raymond L. Rodriguez, Frank E. Hagie
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Abstract
The invention is directed to seed and seed extract compositions containing levels of a human milk protein between 3-40% or higher of the total protein weight of the soluble protein extractable from the seed. Also disclosed is a method of producing the seed with high levels of extractable human milk protein. The method includes transforming a monocotyledonous plant with a chimeric gene having a protein-coding sequence encoding a protein normally present in human milk under the control of a seed maturation-specific promoter. The method may further includes a leader DNA sequence encoding a monocot seed-specific transit sequence capable to target a linked milk protein to a storage body.
Claims9
A method for making a cell culture medium comprising the steps of:
- (a) obtaining a monocot plant stably transformed with a chimeric gene having (i) a seed maturation-specific promoter, (ii) operably linked to said promoter, a leader DNA sequence encoding a monocot seed-specific transit sequence capable of targeting a linked polypeptide to an endosperm-cell organelle, wherein the promoter operably linked to the leader sequence comprises either SEQ ID NO:13 or SEQ ID NO:14 and (iii) a protein-coding sequence encoding a protein normally present in human milk and having growth factor activity,
- (b) cultivating the transformed plant under seed-maturation conditions,
- (c) harvesting the seeds from the cultivated plant,
- (d) extracting the harvested seeds with an aqueous solution, thereby obtaining an extract of water soluble plant components comprising at least 3% by total protein weight of the milk protein,
- (e) purifying the milk protein from the aqueous solution, and
- (f) adding the purified milk protein to cell culture medium.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.