Potential Application of Plant-derived Bioengineered Human VEGF for Tissue Regeneration

Title:Potential Application of Plant-derived Bioengineered Human VEGF for Tissue Regeneration

Volume: 17 Issue: 5

Author(s): Williams Laura, Lunello Pablo, Ajuria Arantxa, Bronchalo Isabel, Romualdo Alberto, Jurado Silvia, Canas Noelia, de Francisco Ana, Cobos Raquel and Orive Gorka

Affiliation:

Keywords: Growth Factor, recombinant human VEGF, plant expression, proteins, regeneration, cosmeceuticals.

Abstract: The design and development of novel biological drugs are among the most exciting new areas of biotechnology which are gaining the attention of scientists. In the last few decades several fabrication processes have been proposed and developed for the production of recombinant growth factors. However, traditional production processes have several limitations in terms of scale- up, cost-efficiency and purity grade of the proteins. In the present study, we propose for the first time the proof-of-concept of large-scale production of growth factors in plants as a new alternative to other production processes. We have decided to select vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) as model assuming its key role in cell survival and regenerative medicine. Results show that the present protocol is efficient to scale up a purification procedure of rh VEGF isoform 165 in Nicotiana benthamiana plants. Our procedure resulted in dimeric VEGF protein with high purity degree and yield, which showed full biological activity over endothelial and epithelial cells, suggesting great potential for its use in regenerative medicine. This protein could be exploited not only in tissue repair and regeneration but also as a biologically active ingredient in dermocosmetics.

Cite this article as:

Laura Williams, Pablo Lunello, Arantxa Ajuria, Isabel Bronchalo, Alberto Romualdo, Silvia Jurado, Noelia Canas, de Francisco Ana , Raquel Cobos and Gorka Orive, Potential Application of Plant-derived Bioengineered Human VEGF for Tissue Regeneration, Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology 2016; 17 (5) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/138920101705160303165312