Mosses can make healing proteins

ETH Zurich researchers show that mosses and humans have unexpected general characteristics. These evolutionary 'relics' may be useful in making therapeutic proteins.

At first glance, mosses and humans have very little in common. The moss Physcomitrella patens is small, light green, motionless, and uses sunlight as a source of energy. People are bigger, move, and collect energy by consuming food from plants and animals.

Convert mammalian gene into moss

This made the results of the research of researchers under the direction of Martin Fussenegger, professor of Chemistry and biotechnology at ETH Zurich, even more surprising.

In collaboration with researchers at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, PhD student Marc Gitzinger conducted experiments to see what happens when human or mammalian genes are introduced into the moss genome. They put outside and unmodified genes into the moss and found that moss easily produces encoded proteins in these genes.

This is something not to be missed, because similar processes do not take place when mammalian genes are introduced into 'higher' plants . The reason is because the beginning and end sequences of animals, plants, fungi and bacteria have significant differences. These sequences play a role in ensuring that a gene in the organism is identified, and that the proteins encoded by this gene are produced in exact amounts and released from the cell. The farther the relationship between organisms is, the greater the difference between these sequences. That's why microbiologists often have to convert these sequences to adapt to other organisms before introducing a gene into the organism. The researchers were stunned to find that this was not necessary in the case of moss.

Moss is a general

Ralf Reski, professor of plant biotechnology at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, explained to this phenomenon that moss is a synthesis. The last transformation of moss was about 450 million years ago when it changed from living underwater to terrestrial living, adapting to a new and unchanging habitat for millions of years, both in shape and shape genetic.

Moss Physcomitrella patens.(Photo: AG Reski / University of Freiburg im Breisgau)

The process that moss uses to produce proteins is much less complicated than 'higher' organisms . In contrast to mosses, these higher organisms undergo many development and specializations over the course of 450 million years. For millions of years, moss still retains the ability to read external genes, such as those from mammals, and transforms into proteins, which may not have used this ability for 450 million years.

Economical replacement for mammalian cells

Today, the moss Physcomitrella patens and the ability to make mammalian proteins can help solve the need for therapeutic proteins worldwide. An easy example is insulin, which allows people with diabetes to control blood sugar levels.

The therapeutic proteins are often produced in mammalian cells and are very expensive. They need to be kept at body temperature and provide adequate nutrition and oxygen, and the process of making proteins is also expensive. Currently, global production capacity cannot meet market demand. Because of the accompanying difficulties, the production of therapeutic proteins occurs only in industrialized countries.

In contrast, the moss Physcomitrella patens does not require so much. It needs water, some minerals, and light to allow it to grow and produce proteins. This makes production simpler and more convenient, and in the future less developed countries can also produce themselves to meet the demand for therapeutic proteins. However, further research needs to be done before moss can be used to make therapeutic proteins on a large scale.

References:
Gitzinger et al.Functional cross-kingdom of mammalian and moss (Physcomitrella patens) transcription, translation and secretion machineries.Plant Biotechnology Journal, 2009;7 (1): 73 DOI: 10.1111 / j.1467-7652.2008.00376.x