Team:Valencia UPV/Results

Valencia UPV iGEM 2015

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Section 2


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Section 3


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Drug production


The concrete aim of AladDNA in this occasion is the production of one of the most needed drugs in the remote areas of the world. The production of our compounds was achive by transcient expression in Nicothiana Benthamiana leaves.

Rotavirus Sip

The sequence construction was kindly given to us by Juarez P. It was created from the variable region of an IgA created by them against rotavirus. However as the structure of small inmunoproteins contains some constant regions, two different constructions were given to us with different fragments of the constant region. The objective of this two structures is to achive which one is more affine to the capside protein of the virus as the affinity can vary as the conformational structure can change.

Figure 1.SIP simplificated structure

Two leaves of Nicotiana were agroinfiltrated for each SIP and after three days samples were collected and a western blot inmuno assay was performed. Western membranes were probed with a labelled antibody against anti-rotavirus IgA.

As it can be observed in the inmunodetection assay, only the SIP with the CH2 constant fragment was recognized by the anti-IgA against rotavirus. In the results there are two detection bands for the CH2 SIP the one with higher molecular weight corresponds to the complete protein produced by the plant. However there is a second band with lower molecular weight caused by the protein degradation that occurs also in the plant.

Figure 2.Detection of anti-rotavirus SIP

Lactoferrin

The lactoferrin construction was designed by us. This protein consist in two homologous domains with iron chelant capability. Although it is known that the desired antimicrobial effect is caused by the N-terminous domain, the lactoferrin has many other beneficial effects as modulate the immune system. Therefor we decided to produce the whole protein in our device.

Figure 3. Lactoferrin 3D Structure

For that porpoise, we ordered synthesis the whole CDS in two different gBlocks as its length impossibility the synthesis in one. We designed the gBlocks in order to be able to assemble them by Golden Braid assembling using a plant promoter, a signal peptide for secretion and a plant terminator. The construction of the whole CDS was achived and probed by digestion with restriction enzymes. The final construction with the transcriptional unit did not get the expected deadline so it was not tested in plants.

Interferon

The interferon construction was assemble from basic parts from the Golden Braid 2.0 collection. After the assembling of the whole transcriptional unit with the promoter, a signal peptide for secretion, the CDS and a terminator; it was transformed to Agrobacterium in order to produce a transcient expression in Nicotiana.

Two leaves were infiltrated and collected three days after that in order to perform a western blot inmuno assay. The probe was performed with an anti-His antibody (CDS was His tagged) and a labeled secondary antibody. As it can be seen in Figure 3, there is a band that correspond to the expected molecular weight of Interferon.

Figure 4.Interferon Detection by inmuno asssay

Cholera Vaccine

In order to produce a Cholera Vaccine we looked for edible vaccines capable to be produced in plants. In this research we found a study from ___ in which a cholera vaccine was produced immunizing with a labile entherobacteria toxin from E. coli. This LTB is produced in plants by ___. Using their sequence we order to synthesis a gBlock and with golden braid assembling we obtained a transcriptional unit for plants.

The LTB was also tagged with His so it was detected by inmuno assay with anti His and a labeled secondary antibody. We obtained a huge expression of this protein inside the plant at the expected molecular weight as it is observed in the Figure 4. /p>

Figure 5.Inmuno detection of colera vaccine produced in plant leaves

Conclusion

Drug production using plants as biofactories, is a real achievement. This chasis allows high production rates in an eco-friendly manner. It is also very interesting specifically in case of biodrugs as they might need some post translational modifications imposible to be achived by other species.

We achived the constructions of three from four of the designed transcriptional units for drug production. The three constructions were finely expressed in Nicothiana. However further studies are required in order to prove the biological activity of all of them.

Section 5


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Section 5


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