Plants and plantibodies

1. Name 10 trees, 10 flowers and 10 herbs in English.

Trees Flowers Herbs

2. Do you think that plants can be perceived as intelligent organisms? Do you think it is possible that plants have
some sort of consciousness?

3. Watch the video and take notes on examples of plants'consciousness.

Are Plants Conscious?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm5i53eiMkU

4. Watch the video again and check what you remember about the following.
 Darwin's concept of the root brain
 plant neurobiology
 plants' senses (especially senses of touch and hearing)
 glutamate receptors and neurotransmitters
 learning behaviour
 plants' memory

5. Match the words from both columns to make phrases. They were all used in the video.
1. to deem sth sb crazy
2. to be splitting leaves
3. to drive motion
4. fast mechanism
5. to pose of intelligence
6. to curl hairs
7. to be the hallmark dangerous
8. a defense a question

6. Think of some most useful plants for mankind. What are they? What are the most important plants used in
medicine or in scientific research?

7. What do you think a plantibody is? What is their significance for pharmaceutical industry?
Quickly read the article and find answers to the questions above.

Plantibodies: A New Approach for Immunomodulation in Human Health

Himani Punia and Anurag Malik

Published: November 19, 2018
Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR)

Introduction

A _____ Antibodies or immunoglobulins are the vital component of adaptive immune system in mammals. These are
mainly present in the body fluid and constitute an assembly of glycoproteins released by B-cells. B-cells constitute the
humoral type of adaptive immune system. They are highly specific to their mode of action. First they recognize their
target specifically, bind to the antigen/toxin of pathogen and produce and elicit the immune response. These features
permit immunoglobulins to be employed in diverse range of applications such as diagnosis, prevention and treatment
[1]. Production of defective antibody response results in increased vulnerability to pyogenic infections due to
impairment in B-cell function, e.g. in hyper-IgM syndrome as a result of improper signal ling between B and T cells
and in X-linked agammaglobulinemia. To overcome these defects, constant region of a human immunoglobulin is
modified by transgenic approach to create recombinant antibody [2]. With this advancement, a new expectation of a
reliable, inexpensive cure for diseases like, diabetes and cancer was awakening; but the major drawback was its cost
ineffectiveness.

B _______ Transgenics is one of the most potential applications in therapeutics for the preparation of various
biological substances such as antibodies, proteins and vaccines. They can be produced from plants by transforming
antibody-coding genes from humans to plants as ‘transgene'. Plants acts as suitable host for production of antibodies
referred as “plantibodies”. The term “plantibodies” describes plan t based products which contains antibody and its
fragments; produced by genetically engineering. Hence, plants are largely used as a host or bioreactors by exploiting
their endomembrane and secretory system to generate huge amount of biological proteins of clinical importance
(either full-length or smaller length fragments). This opens a new era in plant biology research. A wide variety of
plants functionally expressed different types of recombinant by exploiting the same pathway for the assembly of
heavy chain and light chain signal peptides followed by proper folding and assembly as in mammalian cells [4].

Benefits of Using Plants as Host For Mammalian Antibody Production

C _______ It offers numerous unique advantages over conventional methods. Firstly, plants are less prone to
mammalian pathogens; this property reduces screening costs for bacterial toxins, prions and viruses. Both plants and
humans have a similar endomembrane and secretory pathway system. Secondly, plants are widely distributed; their
maturation time completes in a short period of time, say for example, in one season; which enables their production in
a short period of time. Hence they are the cost-effective compared to their animal counterparts [5]. Exposure to
mammalian antibodies do not trigger plants immune response compared as compared to mammalian system.
Production of large amount of antibodies, comparatively in short time period is the most fascinating benefit of plants
as host [6]. Comparatively, crops, for example, corn and tobacco which have higher biomass may act as good
candidate in genetic engineering process; where biological products and viable proteins (stored in seed for an
indefinite period) will be produced in large amounts with small decline in their catalytic activity [5].

D _______ Crops having maximum biomass/hectare such as alfalfa and tobacco may be a best alternative for
antibodies production. Tobacco, a non-feed crop proves to be the most potential crop for large scale production of
therapeutic antibodies. In transgenic tobacco, antibodies against melanoma, human papillomavirus, B-cell lymphoma,
colon, testicular have been produced. These tobacco based plantibodies are still under progress for commercial use in
human health.

Uses of Plantibodies in Medicine

E _______ Among all the pharmaceutical compounds, maximum contribution is accompanied by recombinant
proteins. Presently, clinical trials are going on a number of plantibodies for their therapeutic role. In therapeutics,
CaroRx® was the first plantibody produced from tobacco. It is anti-Streptococcus mutans secretory antibody and
protects from dental caries. Another plantibody was developed in soybean against herpes simplex virus [7]. USDA has
approved CaroRx®, a plantibody for humans; expressed in tobacco, against poultry virus [8]. Plants expressing
clinical proteins and polypeptides of pharmaceutical importance such as human C protein, interferons, hormones, and
cytokines are currently used to provide immunization for example, oral immunization. Edible vaccines expressed in
edible tissue of plants have proved to be an excellent source for expression of desirable antigens and their fragments.
This is a cost effective method to provide immunization via. oral mean. Combining these, genetically engineered
plants proved to be superior system for vaccination in humans. Recently, antibodies against Ebola virus infection has
been explored in tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana).

Conclusion

F _______ They express antibodies and its fragments and edible vaccines in their edible tissues which are of
therapeutic importance. High- scalability, low-cost and safety characteristics present an attractive approach for
commercialization of pharmaceutical products for the developing world.

8. Read the article again and match the topic sentences (1-6) with suitable paragraphs (A-F).
1. Genetically engineered plants/transgenic plants used as host for plantibodies production represent a
huge prospect for the pharmaceuticals.
2. Antibodies or immunoglobulins are the vital component of adaptive immune system in mammals.
3. Plants like corn, tobacco, soybean and other crops shows potential alternative for production of
therapeutic proteins.
4. Genetically engineered plants acts as most desirable and promising host for expression of
plantibodies for humans.
5. Hence, production of cost-effective and scalable platforms that is safe for therapeutics is urgently
required.
6. Plantibodies function in a similar way to mammalian antibodies.

9. What plants would you call killers? Why? Try to think of as many examples as possible and make
sure you can name them in English.
Have you ever heard of molecular farming? What do you think it might be?
10. You are going to watch a presentation 'How to improve global health with a lethal killer' by Julian
Ma.He is going to talk about a project that aims at " turning a plant around from a global killer to a
global healer." Can you think of the plant used in the project? Watch the very beginning of the talk
(0.00-0.33) and find out. Then try to think of the following:
 what are the major global issues that Julian Ma might be talking about
 how modern biotechnology through the use of the plant mentioned might help to address these issues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2DgJBx3cyA
11. Watch the talk and answer the questions.
 What does field molecular farming involve?
 What use do they make of the bacterium Agrobacterium Tumefaciens?
 Were the results of the 8-year-long project successful?
 What are the applications of plant antibodies? What are their advantages?

12. Use words from both columns to make phrases. They were all used in the talk.

1. to address to take control of

2. have access to a huge plethora of medicines
3. the stark fact a huge number of doors for future projects
4. spot of the matter
5. to open up global issues
6. empowers women interest
7. to be a long standing the difference

13. Complete the expressions below (from the article) with appropriate prepositions.
a) infections due ____ impairment in B-cell function
b) it offers advantages ____ conventional methods
c) plants are less prone ____ pathogens
d) compared ____ their counterparts
e) a small decline ____ their activity
f) these plantibodies are ____ process for commercial use
g) accompanied ____
h) it protects ____ dental caries

14. Do more exercises on prepositional phrases.

15. Read carefully the fragment of the article below. What part of speech seems to be most frequent
here? What is the effect?
Production of defective antibody response results in increased vulnerability to pyogenic infections due to
impairment in B-cell function, e.g. in hyper-IgM syndrome as a result of improper signal ling between B and T
cells and in X-linked agammaglobulinemia. To overcome these defects, constant region of a human
immunoglobulin is modified by transgenic approach to create recombinant antibody [2]. With this
 advancement, a new expectation of a reliable, inexpensive cure for diseases like, diabetes and cancer was
awakening; but the major drawback was its cost ineffectiveness.

By using a noun rather than a verb or an adjective, nominalisation focuses on the concepts rather than the actions or
the people involved.

The committee postponed the meeting ...

The postponement of the meeting (by the committee) ...
The tiny baby was perfect. It astounded him.
The perfection of the tiny baby astounded him.
Crime was increasing rapidly and the police were becoming concerned.
The rapid increase in crime was causing concern among the police.
Germany invaded Poland in 1939. This was the immediate cause of the Second World War breaking out.
Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939 was the immediate cause of the outbreak of the Second World War.

Nominalisation is common in formal writing. We use it for a number of reasons:

 It can combine two clauses so is more economical.
The university decided to expand its physics department, which attracted greater funding.
The university's decision to expand its science department attracted greater funding.
 It can be used to avoid mentioning who does an action.
The government closed the mine and made 300 miners redundant.
The closure of the mine resulted in 300 redundancies.
 It can be used to summarise a previous point.
Protestors have prevented traffic from moving through the centre again today. This situation cannot be allowed to
continue, (this situation = protestors preventing traffic from moving through the centre)

Nominalisations are often followed by a preposition (e.g. postponement of, arrival at, wait for).
Here is an extract from a biology report. Nominalisation has been used frequently in this passage, creating a more
academic, abstract tone. (The nouns formed as a result of nominalisation of verb phrases are highlighted.)

Many Australian plant species produce seeds with fleshy appendages called elaiosomes. It
was hypothesised that elaiosomes are involved in the dispersal of seeds by ants. To test this
hypothesis, the removal of seeds with elaiosomes was compared to seeds from which the
elaiosome had been removed and observations were made to confirm that the agents of seed
removal were indeed ants. It was found that the removal of seeds with elaiosomes was
significantly greater than those without elaiosomes. Observations of the seed
removal process confirmed that ants were the only agents of seed removal.

from https://unilearning.uow.edu.au/academic/3b.html