Posted on 10/31/2011 10:52:08 PM PDT by neverdem
Human serum albumin from transgenic rice could ease shortages of donated blood.
One can't squeeze blood from a turnip, but new research suggests that a bit of transgenic tweaking may make it possible to squeeze blood — or at least blood protein — from a grain of rice. In a study published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers describe rice seeds that can produce substantial quantities of a blood protein called human serum albumin, or HSA1.
HSA is in high demand around the world, both for its role in drug and vaccine production and for use in treating patients with severe burns and other serious conditions such as haemorrhagic shock and liver cirrhosis. The primary source of therapeutic HSA is donated human blood. To overcome limitations caused by blood shortages and contamination of donated blood by viruses, researchers worldwide have been working to create functional HSA either synthetically, with the help of yeast and bacteria, or in transgenic organisms such as cows and tobacco.
In China, which has suffered from HSA shortages and contaminated blood supplies, the idea of using an abundant crop like rice to supplement or even supplant the current albumin supply is an attractive one. "We could ease demand for HSA and reduce the potential risk of spreading viruses in blood plasma. That's what prompted me to do something like this," says Daichang Yang, a plant biotechnologist at Wuhan University, China, who led the research.
Tiny bioreactors
Part of the difficulty in producing synthetic or laboratory versions of HSA, however, has been developing a system with a high yield, low cost and low risk of immune reaction. Yang thinks that his seed-based method has the potential to satisfy all of those requirements. "Scientists have been using plants to produce HSA...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Large-scale production of functional human serum albumin from transgenic rice seeds
In the right sidebar, the PDF is a FReebie.
You need albumin to maintain the oncotic pressure in your plasma. By doing that, it helps to maintain intravascular volume, among its other functions such as binding hormones and drugs.
Just a few years ago, this would have been discovered in America. We don’t do squat anymore.
Sufficient albumin is extremely important to dialysis patients (like me). Low albumin leads to increased hospitalization and death, and unfortunately, dialysis while cleaning toxins from blood, also removed albumin.
Fascinating article!
removed = removes.
D’oh!
This sounds really promising. Thanks for all the articles like this that you post. I learn much from them!
Perhaps now there is hope that we can turn vampires into vegetarians?
“Just a few years ago, this would have been discovered in America”
Could it be because the Red Cross would rather it got donations from the highly infected gay population?
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