Algae Better Than Bacteria For Medicinal Proteins
Recently, researchers have discovered that algae can grow much needed proteins used for health treatments better than traditional bacteria methods. Take a look:
The scientists reported in their paper that all of the algal-produced proteins in their study showed biological activity comparable to the same proteins produced by traditional commercial techniques. And because algae cells can be grown cheaply and quickly, doubling in number every 12 hours, they noted that algae could be superior to current biological systems for the production of many human therapeutic proteins.
“Currently, human therapeutic proteins are primarily produced from either bacteria or mammalian cell culture,” they said. “Complex mammalian proteins and monoclonal antibodies are primarily produced by the culture of transgeneic mammalian cells, while simpler proteins are generally produced by E. coli.”
“Due to high capital and media costs, and the inherent complexity of mammalian cell culture, proteins produced by mammalian cell culture are very expensive,” they added. “Bacterial production is generally more economical in terms of media components, but bacteria are often inefficient at producing properly folded complex proteins, requiring a denaturation and renaturation step that adds significant costs to bacterial protein production.”
The scientists said the percentage of human proteins produced in their algal cultures that were properly folded in three dimensions was comparable to the fraction produced by mammalian cell cultures and much better than that produced by bacterial systems. And because algae generate their energy from sunlight and have relatively simple nutrient needs, they said the costs for using them at large scale to commercially produce human proteins should be much lower than for mammalian cell culture, which require expensive fermentation facilities.
Ultimately, if this is found to be feasible, it could be another co-product for algae biofuel, thus helping cut down the cost for growth as well as providing another reason to continue research and funding into this field.
