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Sal@mander.xyz

Turning plants into biological factories – Earth News | Particle (particle.scitech.org.au)

submitted 2 years ago by Daryl76679@lemmy.ml to c/biology@mander.xyz

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[–] appel@whiskers.bim.boats 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Afaik, it depends on where the medicine came from, if it's from a eukaryote (compounds from plants, fungi, animals) then it may be glycosylated, and you'd therefore have to produce it in a host that supports glycosylation (another eukaryote). I think prokaryotes also have some features of transcription and translation that make them different to eukaryotes, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

But to be honest, I think the point of this may be that growing stuff in a plant is easier than using a bioreactor or flask.

For a plant, you need:

Soil
Water
Light
A bag of seeds

For a bioreactor you need:

A bioreactor (not cheap)
Sterilisation equipment
Closed processing equipment (tubes, filters, tube welders)
Bioreactor control device
Biological safety cabinet to work in
Sterile media, probably with specific additives depending on your cell line
All of the numerous plastic consumables used in modern labs
Liquid nitrogen storage of cells
Probably some more stuff

Dunno about you, but the former sounds easier to do in a space station to me.

EDIT: didn't consider extraction of the molecule, in both cases of plant and microbial production, that would require eome specific equipment. Probably centrifuges and chromatography required for both.

[–] Sal@mander.xyz 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Those are some great points, thank you! I wasn't aware (and if I ever was, I forgot!) that glycosylation was much more common in eukaryotes than in prokaryotes - that is very interesting.

EDIT: didn’t consider extraction of the molecule, in both cases of plant and microbial production, that would require eome specific equipment. Probably centrifuges and chromatography required for both.

Still, I think that the technical requirements for an extraction are much more accessible than an industrial a bioreactor setup. So your points still stand.

[–] eporetsky@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Another point I can think of is that storing a bunch of seeds in tubes at room temperature for many decades is trivial compared to cryo-storing microbes. Might make it easier to handle if you decide to produce the genetically engineered plants on earth. Just collect a few seeds from each strain that produces a specific useful thing and germinate the seeds when you need it