Transgenic bioreactors.

ABSTRACT

Since the generation of the first transgenic mice in 1980, transgene technology has also been successfully applied to large farm animals. Although this technology can be employed to improve certain production traits of livestock, this approach has not been very successful so far owing to unwanted effects encountered in the production animals. However, by using tissue-specific targeting of the transgene expression, it is possible to produce heterologous proteins in the extracellular space of large transgenic farm animals. Even though some recombinant proteins, such as human hemoglobin, have been produced in the blood of transgenic pigs, in the majority of the cases mammary gland targeted expression of the transgene has been employed. Using production genes driven by regulatory sequences of milk protein genes a number of valuable therapeutic proteins have been produced in the milk of transgenic bioreactors, ranging from rabbits to dairy cattle. Unlike bacterial fermentors, the mammary gland of transgenic bioreactors appear to carry out proper postsynthetic modifications of human proteins required for full biological activity. In comparison with mammalian cell bioreactors, transgenic livestock with mammary gland targeted expression seems to be able to produce valuable human therapeutic proteins at very low cost. Although not one transgenically produced therapeutic protein is yet on the market, the first such proteins have recently entered or even completed clinical trials required for their approval.