Sourrouille C, Marquet-Blouin E, D'Aoust MA, Kiefer-Meyer MC, Seveno M, Pagny-Salehabadi S, Bardor M, Durambur G, Lerouge P, Vezina L, Gomord V. Down-regulated expression of plant-specific glycoepitopes in alfalfa.
PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY JOURNAL 2008;
6:702-21. [PMID:
18498310 DOI:
10.1111/j.1467-7652.2008.00353.x]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 62] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
SUMMARY
Compared with other plant expression systems used for pharmaceutical protein production, alfalfa offers the advantage of very homogeneous N-glycosylation. Therefore, this plant was selected for further attempts at glycoengineering. Two main approaches were developed in order to humanize N-glycosylation in alfalfa. The first was a knock-down of two plant-specific N-glycan maturation enzymes, beta1,2-xylosyltransferase and alpha1,3-fucosyltransferases, using sense, antisense and RNA interference strategies. In a second approach, with the ultimate goal of rebuilding the whole human sialylation pathway, human beta1,4-galactosyltransferase was expressed in alfalfa in a native form or in fusion with a targeting domain from N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase I, a glycosyltransferase located in the early Golgi apparatus in Nicotiana tabacum. Both knock-down and knock-in strategies strongly, but not completely, inhibited the biosynthesis of alpha1,3-fucose- and beta1,2-xylose-containing glycoepitopes in transgenic alfalfa. However, recombinant human beta1,4-galactosyltransferase activity in transgenic alfalfa completely prevented the accumulation of the Lewis a glycoepitope on complex N-glycans.
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