Protein Therapeutics Drug Discovery
Applications
Protein therapeutics is based on the application of various proteins occurring in different organisms. One of the first inspirations for protein therapy came from the discovery of bioluminescent proteins in jellyfish. Since then, mushrooms and algae have also presented proteins with useful applications.
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Mushrooms
In the last decade, there have been a lot of studies on the potential role of mushroom proteins in the prevention and treatment of human diseases such as cancer. Mushrooms are rich in protein with high biological quality. Some of the proteins that mushrooms contain are ribosome inactivating proteins, lectins, antifungal proteins, ubiquitin-like proteins, protease
inhibitors, ribonucleases, laccases, and other enzymes. Many of the proteins contain potent antifungal, antiviral, and immunomodulatory properties that scientists have great interest in studying. Many studies are being done on their uses as potential therapeutic agents. Shiitake mushrooms, for example, are valued in some culture as an anti-cancer agent. In fact it is the second most popular form of alternative medicine used by cancer patients in Japan. It contains a beta glucan called lentinan that is believed to stimulate the immune system and trigger certain cells and proteins in the body to attack cancer cells.
There have been studies that show that lentinan slows the growth of cancer in some cell cultures. In laboratory tests, the protein part of lentinan (lentin) can stop the growth of some fungal cells as well as stop leukemic cells from dividing. While there have been some positive laboratory results with using shiitake extracts to slow certain cancer growth, there still needs to be larger scale studies before we will know how shiitake extracts can help people with cancer. There are many clinical trials currently under way to isolate the compounds in shiitake mushrooms and to study its properties in treating cancer. Extracts from the maitake mushrooms, Agaricussylvaticus, Reishi mushrooms, and phellinuslinteusare a few types of mushrooms that are currently being studied and how its properties can be used as potential therapeutic agent for cancer.
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Jellyfish, one of the oldest creatures in the world, are not only beautiful, but remarkable creatures in many other ways. Since the 1960’s, they have contributed to advancements in biotechnology. Since that time, jellyfish have been used for extracting bioluminescent proteins. The luminescence they produce is often used as a “biomarker" or “biotag” to allow scientists to identify and study the activation of genes. Scientists have sequenced and cloned the gene that causes the bioluminescence effect of jelly fish. When the protein is injected in cells and organisms, the luminescence allows scientists to see and study inside living cells.
Manmade green fluorescence proteins have become a very useful tool in biological science and medicine. It has aided the understanding of how the immune system works. Scientists have genetically manipulated immune system cells to produce the fluorescent protein, so they can follow their movements in response to an infection. The fluorescent jellyfish protein has revolutionized stem cell research, cancer research and neuroscience. It has helped scientist better understand how cancer cell metastasize, highlighted nerve cell damage in Alzheimer’s patients, and the effects of cells during HIV infection.
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Recently, scientists have found that Hydractinia Echinata, also known as snail fur and a relative of jelly fish, can regenerate any lost body part, clone itself and appear not to age. It’s stem cells were found to be very similar to human stem cells. This discovery may help us understand how we can clone their regenerative potential.
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Jellyfish
Algae
“Because we can make the exact same drug in algae, we have the opportunity to drive down the price dramatically” -Stephen Mayfield
Scientists have successfully used genetically engineered algae to produce a complex and inexpensive human therapeutic drug to treat emphysema and other diseases. Stephen Mayfield, a biologist from U.C. San Diego, says that the studies that they have been conducted show that the use of algae in therapeutic protein production could dramatically cut the costs of making complex proteins that are currently being used to treat cancer and other diseases. “Because we can make the exact same drug in algae, we have the opportunity to drive down the price dramatically” said Stephen.
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Complex drugs are currently being produced from mammalian or bacterial cells. Algae, on the other hand would be much less expensive to work with and the algae cells grow much more quickly. Scientists have spent years working with a green alga called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii as a genetic model organism. It can produce a wide range of human therapeutic proteins in greater quantity and less expensively that bacteria or mammalian cells. Already there has been human antibody protein and human therapeutic drugs produced with the algae used to treat emphysema.
Scientists are hopeful that the use algae in therapeutic protein development may become an economically superior way for therapeutic protein production in the future.
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