Team:TU Kaiserslautern

MOCLO MANIA

Revolutionizing protein production by establishing the Modular Cloning system in Leishmania tarentolae

In medicine and research, you often need huge amounts of protein which usually can be produced in the lab by using organisms like Escherichia coli.

But especially the production of therapeutic proteins in most common lab organisms can be challenging, as they do not process the proteins suitable for usage in the human body.

The biggest difficulty in processing a protein is glycosylation, the attachment of carbohydrates which shows various patterns in different organisms.

Our solution for this is Leishmania tarentolae.

Leishmania are obligate parasitic protozoa which can cause diseases like leishmaniasis, but in case of Leishmania tarentolae, the organism is non-pathogenic to humans. And the best part is: Leishmania show human-like glycosylation patterns.

To establish an efficient production system for proteins in Leishmania, we use Modular Cloning - a building block system based on Golden Gate cloning.

Once the library of genetic parts is built, it can be used all around the world to make the production of proteins, especially for therapeutic purposes, easier and more affordable.