SBIR-STTR Award

Recombinant proteins have great commercial value as therapeutic and diagnostic products. Currently available production systems have a variety of shortcomings due to quality of product or cost of production which indicates the need for improved production systems. The more complex proteins which are made up of more than one type of polypeptide subunits are more difficult to produce in today's recombinant production systems. The filamentous fungus Neurospora crassa is already known to be a competent producer of processed and secreted proteins. Additionally, heterokaryons can be readily formed which allow complementing nuclei to coexist and function in the same cytoplasm. These processes will be exploited to determine if heteromeric antibody molecules will be produced when a nucleus capable of producing human immunoglobulin light chains is introduced into the same cytoplasm with a nucleus capable of producing human immunoglobulin heavy chains. The intended outcome of this project is the successful production of intact antibody molecules in a recombinant Neurospora crassa production system.Proposed commercial application:This proposal tests a method for producing recombinant human molecules composed of non-identical sub-units. These molecules include many potentially useful therapeutic proteins. Production of substantial quantities of these heteromeric proteins at a reasonable cost will be of considerable commercial value. Projections of the market for recombinant therapeutic proteins generally exceed $10 billion early in the next century. Any contribution to cost reduction and ease of production of these molecules will be a valuable technology.National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)