Herceptin produced in tobacco plants could lead to cheaper chemotherapy for certain types of breast cancer
August 15th, 2011 by admin
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Herceptin, or Trastuzumab is employed to treat certain types of breast cancer with high efficiency. The drug consists of a monoclonal antibody raised against a protein called Her2, which is highly abundant in some tumours with high probability of migrating and becoming metastatic. Tumours found to have high levels of her2 are called “Her2 positive“. When injected the drug binds to the surface of the tumour cells that have Her2 and make them an easy target for the immune system. Herceptin is used with increasing frequency but the costs associated to its use are very high. The high costs make it difficult to sustain long-term administration and thus the efficiency of the treatment may become compromised. Now, Canadian scientists have developed a method to produce Herceptin in tobacco plants. They inserted the genes encoding the antibody into special tobacco plants and let them grow. After a while, they crushed the leaves and purified active Herceptin in large amounts. They have tested their product and showed that is seems to work as well as the normal Herceptin. This exciting study brings big hopes as it will help bring down the costs of the expensive Herceptin treatments.
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