Characterization and applications of antibodies produced in plants

Of the variety of compounds expressed in transgenic plants, antibodies offer probably the widest range of applications. The antibodies appear to possess all of the functional characteristics of antibody derived from hybridoma cells, although further study will be required to determine the effect of the difference in heavy chain glycosylation. More work will also be directed toward the assembly, accumulation, stability and secretion of plant antibodies. The effect of the signal sequence on the expression and assembly of antibodies has been shown and further methods of optimizing transgenic protein accumulation in plants almost certainly exist. Plant antibody technology is still in its infancy. However, it offers enormous potential in "mix-and-match" antibody engineering, and the construction of multimeric immunoglobulin complexes may be feasible relatively easily, for the first time. Furthermore, as there is an enduring interest in using antibodies for therapeutic purposes, agricultural production and distribution offers a means of obtaining large quantities of antibodies at a relatively low cost.