PhD defence of Kim van Noort - Glyco-engineering in plants: Fucosyltransferase characterisation and application for the production of immunomodulatory helminth glycoproteins

Summary:

Over the last two decades plants have been used for the production of human pharmaceutical proteins, such as antibodies or hormones. Many of these proteins are glycoproteins, ‘coated’ with sugars (glycans). These glycans can be important for protein folding and/or activity, and the composition of the glycans can vary between organisms. Hence, in order to produce a human glycoprotein in plants, the plant glycosylation pathway has to be engineered. Various glyco-engineering studies have shown the possibilities to “humanise” the plant glycosylation pathway enabling the production of human glycoproteins. Other research fields could benefit from this production platform as well. For example, studies on glycosylated helminth glycoproteins show the high potential of these proteins as pharmaceuticals. However, these proteins cannot be isolated in sufficient quantities from the helminth or its secretions. Moreover, many of these proteins are glycosylated with glycans that cannot be mimicked in current recombinant production systems. For this purpose, the focus in this thesis is on glyco-engineering of plants to establish a production system for native helminth glycoproteins.