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I was delighted to attend the ISPMF meeting thanks to the support of the BSPP travel award. Plant molecular farming refers to the production of recombinant proteins in plants that may be used as pharmaceuticals, food products or for research purposes (e.g. antibodies). These approaches are mostly based on Agrobacterium-mediated transformation of Nicotiana plants. Agrobacteria elicit immune responses in Nicotiana and limiting these responses is an attractive solution to boost recombinant protein yields. For this reason, plant pathology research and plant molecular farming are inextricably linked.
I arrived in Cape Town a few days before the conference started to explore the city. Cape Town is a renowned biodiversity hotspot and I was fortunate enough to see wild ostriches at the Cape of Good Hope, African penguins and flowering Protea (sugarbush) – the national flower of South Africa.
The work presented highlighted the rapid progress made by the field in demonstrating efficacy of plant-derived recombinant protein products – including vaccines and therapeutics (such as human serum albumin). There is a major overlap between plant molecular farming and plant virology, as plant viruses (e.g. potato virus X) can be re-engineered to package and replicate nucleic acid cargo in planta. Several speakers including Professor Renier van der Hoorn from the University of Oxford highlighted the importance of limiting the N. benthmiana immune responses elicited by Agrobacteria. In particular, plants respond to immune challenge by creating a highly hydrolytic apoplastic environment which can result in degradation of recombinant protein products. I presented a poster detailing the potential for genetic code expansion technologies to revolutionise plant molecular farming and had many productive discussions with fellow attendees. We also paid a visit to Cape Biologix, a pioneering plant molecular farming company based in Cape Town and one of the sponsors of the ISPMF conference. It is fascinating to consider the potential that plant biology research has to make positive changes in the world!
Brian Mooney
University of Oxford
