Plant-based recombinant expression systems offer a highly reproducible platform for synthesizing recombinant human collagen, effectively overcoming the limitations associated with animal-derived and cadaver-sourced collagens. This makes them an ideal collagen source for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. Furthermore, utilizing plant cells or whole plants as expression systems for synthesizing recombinant human collagen holds promising prospects, featuring lower costs, enhanced scalability, absence of animal-related risks, and high design flexibility.

Lifeasible provides advanced technical support and comprehensive solutions for plant-based production of recombinant human collagen. By utilizing plants as bioreactors to produce target proteins, we offer a cost-effective, highly scalable collagen source that matches the mechanical properties and functionality of natural human collagen while eliminating concerns about immunogenicity and disease transmission associated with animal-derived collagens.

Advantages of Plant-Derived Recombinant Human Collagen Production

Our plant-expressed full-length human collagen overcomes the limitations of traditional animal-derived and microbial fermentation collagens by utilizing plant bioreactor technology to produce collagen that aligns with human physiological characteristics.

• Reconstruction of triple-helix structure. Plant cells can complete hydroxylation modifications, enabling the expressed collagen to possess a natural triple-helix structure with functionality identical to native human collagen.
• High biosafety. Eliminates risks of animal-derived contamination and immunogenicity, while preventing viral and bacterial transmission.
• Cost and scale advantages. Plants enable low-cost, large-scale production suitable for industrial applications.

Our Service for Plant-Derived Recombinant Human Collagen Production

Our plant expression platform employs transgenic technology to integrate human collagen genes and their key modifying enzymes, enabling proper collagen folding and post-translational modifications. We have established an advanced plant-based collagen production platform utilizing Nicotiana benthamiana plants for collagen synthesis. Our sophisticated plant-based collagen production system yields collagen with optimal hydroxylation levels, enabling rapid protein cultivation, extraction, and processing within condensed timelines.

Customized gene design and vector construction

We design and optimize genes encoding human collagen sequences according to client requirements (e.g., specific collagen types I, II, III) and construct efficient, stable plant expression vectors to ensure high-yield expression and accurate post-translational modification of the target proteins.

Plant expression system development and stable transformation

We offer multiple plant expression system options, including transient expression and stable transgenic lines. Utilizing advanced Agrobacterium-mediated transformation technology, we efficiently introduce target genes into plant hosts such as Nicotiana benthamiana. As plants continue to grow, the target protein is expressed in their leaves. Plants are harvested after one to two weeks, and leaves undergo simple purification to recover high-purity proteins. During this process, we can design Agrobacterium to direct the expressed proteins into specific plant cellular compartments based on required post-translational modifications (PTMs), thereby protecting them from the extracellular environment.

Large-scale plant cultivation and biomass production

Our state-of-the-art controlled-environment growth facilities and bioreactor technologies support scalable plant cultivation and biomass expansion. Production capacity can be rapidly scaled from gram-level to tens of kilograms of plant material, laying a solid foundation for industrial production.

Downstream purification process development and scale-up

We have established robust and scalable downstream purification workflows encompassing extraction, filtration, and chromatography steps. This ensures the final collagen product exhibits exceptional purity, intact biological activity, and complete removal of plant-specific impurities.

Our technical process

• Gene construction and introduction. Constructing human-specific collagen type genes and modifying enzyme genes into plant expression vectors.
• Plant transformation. Introducing genes into plant cells via transient or stable expression methods.
• Protein expression and modification. Completing protein synthesis, hydroxylation modification, and triple-helix structure formation within plant cells.
• Extraction and purification. Extracting collagen from plant tissues and performing purification to obtain high-purity products.

Fig.2 Our service process. (Lifeasible)

Applications of Plant-Derived Recombinant Human Collagen Production

• Medical aesthetic and skin repair. Plant-derived collagen possesses a natural triple-helical structure, high affinity, and no animal-derived risks, making it suitable for injectable fillers, masks, wound dressings, and more. Additionally, it possesses high hydration capacity and excellent skin absorption, promoting elasticity restoration and wrinkle reduction.
• Regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Our plant-expressed fully human collagen, characterized by low immunogenicity and excellent biodegradability, serves as a premium biomaterial for applications including cartilage repair, artificial corneas, bone graft scaffolds, nerve conduits, and skin repair matrices.
• High-end medical devices. As a medical-grade biomaterial, it can be processed into implantable consumables such as artificial blood vessels, heart valves, and tissue sealants, minimizing rejection reactions.

Highlights of Our Services

• Customized production. We tailor collagen types, molecular weight ranges, and chemical modifications to meet client specifications.
• End-to-end support. We provide one-stop services from gene design to final product delivery.
• Product consistency. We precisely engineer specific collagen types or functional fragments, ensuring high uniformity and quality stability across batches.
• Complete technology chain. Our integrated platform spans gene design, plant transformation, scaled cultivation, and purification processes, delivering comprehensive technical assurance throughout the entire production journey.

Advancements in synthetic biology and plant molecular agriculture will further optimize hydroxylation efficiency, increase yields, and enable the development of novel collagen variants. Lifeasible remains committed to advancing this technology's industrialization, providing customers with safe, high-performance recombinant collagen solutions. If you are interested, please feel free to contact us.