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Tobacco plants can be engineered to manufacture artemisinin at therapeutic levels, according research published in Molecular Plant.
The researchers noted that the majority of people who live in malaria-endemic areas cannot afford to buy artemisinin.
The drug’s high cost is due to the extraction process and the fact that it’s difficult to grow Artemisia annua, the original source of the drug, in climates where malaria is common.
Advances in synthetic biology have made it possible to produce artemisinin in yeast, but the manufacturing process is difficult to scale up.
Earlier studies showed that artemisinin can be grown in tobacco—a plant that’s relatively easy to genetically manipulate and that grows well in areas where malaria is endemic. But yields of artemisinin from those plants were low.
Now, Shashi Kumar, PhD, of the International Centre for Genetic
Engineering and Biotechnology in New Delhi, India, and his colleagues say they have overcome this problem.
In the Molecular Plant paper, Dr Kumar and his colleagues reported using a dual-transformation approach to boost the production of artemisinin in the tobacco plants.
The team first generated plants that contained transgenic chloroplasts, and the same plants were then manipulated again to insert genes into the nuclear genome as well.
Extract from the plants was shown to stop the growth of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro. Whole cells from the plant were also fed to mice infected with Plasmodium berghei, which greatly reduced levels of the parasite in the blood.
In fact, the researchers found the whole plant material was more effective in attacking the parasite than pure artemisinin, likely because encapsulation inside the plant cells protected the compound from degradation by digestive enzymes.
The researchers acknowledged that convincing people to eat tobacco plants is likely to be a hard sell. For that reason, they are now aiming to genetically engineer lettuce plants to produce artemisinin at therapeutic levels.
They said the lettuce containing the drug could be freeze dried, ground into a powder, and put into capsules for cost-effective delivery.
“Plant and animal science are increasingly coming together,” Dr Kumar said. “In the near future, you will see more drugs produced inside plants will be commercialized to reduce the drug cost.” 
Tobacco plants can be engineered to manufacture artemisinin at therapeutic levels, according research published in Molecular Plant.
The researchers noted that the majority of people who live in malaria-endemic areas cannot afford to buy artemisinin.
The drug’s high cost is due to the extraction process and the fact that it’s difficult to grow Artemisia annua, the original source of the drug, in climates where malaria is common.
Advances in synthetic biology have made it possible to produce artemisinin in yeast, but the manufacturing process is difficult to scale up.
Earlier studies showed that artemisinin can be grown in tobacco—a plant that’s relatively easy to genetically manipulate and that grows well in areas where malaria is endemic. But yields of artemisinin from those plants were low.
Now, Shashi Kumar, PhD, of the International Centre for Genetic
Engineering and Biotechnology in New Delhi, India, and his colleagues say they have overcome this problem.
In the Molecular Plant paper, Dr Kumar and his colleagues reported using a dual-transformation approach to boost the production of artemisinin in the tobacco plants.
The team first generated plants that contained transgenic chloroplasts, and the same plants were then manipulated again to insert genes into the nuclear genome as well.
Extract from the plants was shown to stop the growth of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro. Whole cells from the plant were also fed to mice infected with Plasmodium berghei, which greatly reduced levels of the parasite in the blood.
In fact, the researchers found the whole plant material was more effective in attacking the parasite than pure artemisinin, likely because encapsulation inside the plant cells protected the compound from degradation by digestive enzymes.
The researchers acknowledged that convincing people to eat tobacco plants is likely to be a hard sell. For that reason, they are now aiming to genetically engineer lettuce plants to produce artemisinin at therapeutic levels.
They said the lettuce containing the drug could be freeze dried, ground into a powder, and put into capsules for cost-effective delivery.
“Plant and animal science are increasingly coming together,” Dr Kumar said. “In the near future, you will see more drugs produced inside plants will be commercialized to reduce the drug cost.”
Tobacco plants can be engineered to manufacture artemisinin at therapeutic levels, according research published in Molecular Plant.
The researchers noted that the majority of people who live in malaria-endemic areas cannot afford to buy artemisinin.
The drug’s high cost is due to the extraction process and the fact that it’s difficult to grow Artemisia annua, the original source of the drug, in climates where malaria is common.
Advances in synthetic biology have made it possible to produce artemisinin in yeast, but the manufacturing process is difficult to scale up.
Earlier studies showed that artemisinin can be grown in tobacco—a plant that’s relatively easy to genetically manipulate and that grows well in areas where malaria is endemic. But yields of artemisinin from those plants were low.
Now, Shashi Kumar, PhD, of the International Centre for Genetic
Engineering and Biotechnology in New Delhi, India, and his colleagues say they have overcome this problem.
In the Molecular Plant paper, Dr Kumar and his colleagues reported using a dual-transformation approach to boost the production of artemisinin in the tobacco plants.
The team first generated plants that contained transgenic chloroplasts, and the same plants were then manipulated again to insert genes into the nuclear genome as well.
Extract from the plants was shown to stop the growth of Plasmodium falciparum in vitro. Whole cells from the plant were also fed to mice infected with Plasmodium berghei, which greatly reduced levels of the parasite in the blood.
In fact, the researchers found the whole plant material was more effective in attacking the parasite than pure artemisinin, likely because encapsulation inside the plant cells protected the compound from degradation by digestive enzymes.
The researchers acknowledged that convincing people to eat tobacco plants is likely to be a hard sell. For that reason, they are now aiming to genetically engineer lettuce plants to produce artemisinin at therapeutic levels.
They said the lettuce containing the drug could be freeze dried, ground into a powder, and put into capsules for cost-effective delivery.
“Plant and animal science are increasingly coming together,” Dr Kumar said. “In the near future, you will see more drugs produced inside plants will be commercialized to reduce the drug cost.”