BIO ENG 10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Artemisia Annua, Antimalarial Medication, Artemisinin
Document Summary
Problem - production of the anti-malarial drug artemisinin. Malaria - plasmodium sporozoite traversing the cytoplasm of a mosquito cell. 4 species of malaria-causing plasmodium, efficacy is species-specific and drug resistance develops over time. Artemisinin - typically isolated from the plant artemisia annua (sweet wormwood), hard to synthesize. 1 ton of leaves yields 6 kg of artemisinin, purification involves hexane and acetonitrile. Solution - genetically engineered yeast to almost entirely produce the drug from simple sugar. Cheaper to produce yeast in a lab vs. harvesting leaves and processing. Easier to manipulate yeast as opposed to trees. Advantages: easy to control protein expression, high yield, can tweak the system so that protein is secreted. Disadvantages: no post-translational activity, biological and immune activity may differ from natural product, endotoxins released when bacteria is lysed. Advantages: no detectable endotoxins, cheap fermentation and mass production, post-translational modifications are available, can be modified to secrete protein.
