Agroinfiltration is More Complex Than I Originally Presumed

The Complexity of Agroinfiltration

             Good afternoon everyone, during today's internship experience I have discovered that one of my past blogs has some incorrect information about agroinfiltration. It turns out that agroinfiltration is more complex than I have originally presume. For instance, in the laboratory I have found that there are four different strains of agrobacterium media that are used to transport the gene of interest to the Nicotiana benthamiana plants. These different agrobacterium strains act as vectors, where like I said before they carry the gene of interest to the plants in order to express the genes and use the genetic sequence encoded by the gene of interest for the plant machinery to produce the desired monoclonal antibodies. In the laboratory, we have engineered the four different strains to possess plasmid genes from different vector sources. For instance, one of the agrobacterium strain possesses PVX (Potato Virus X) plasmid genes, another agrobacterium strain consists TMV (Tobacco Mosaic Virus) plasmid genes, another consists a genetically engineered heavy chain combined TMV plasmid genes, and lastly there is one strain that has a light chained combined PVX plasmid genes. A quick note that I think my audience should know is that a plasmid is a circular loop of DNA genes that is found in the nucleoid region of a bacterium that can replicate independently just like regular DNA chromosomes. Pretty much using plasmids has been the pivotal technique that is used in my project because these plasmids are responsible for containing the gene of interest that I need to infiltrate into the plants in order to trick the plants to produce the monoclonal antibodies. The heavy chain and light chain components are what we want to be used to replaced the normal viral proteins that are naturally found on PVX and TMV, where these chains are responsible for the bacteria to transmit the desired gene of interest into the plants. Pretty much these new facts about my project I felt had to be readdressed in my blogs, because I want anyone who is reading my blogs to understand the work that I doing in the lab. 

                 The production of the monoclonal antibody is pivotal to my project, because these antibodies serve as temporary treatments for patients infected with the Dengue virus. In one of my previous blogs, I have described the symptoms that are caused by the Dengue virus and that these symptoms progress over time. That is why it is very important to produce these antibodies in order for the antibodies to help opsonize the Dengue virus infection and prolong its effects onto an infected host until the host's immune system can kick in and destroy the threat. By no coincidence does the antibodies treat the host, because like any other antibody each of these antibodies are specific for one viral epitope. Key note: an epitope is a specific region on a viral envelope where an antibody can attach to a receptor on the viral surface. This treatment of the production of monoclonal antibodies is only temporary and may not work eventually as viruses such as Dengue continue to evolve and change the structure of their epitopes. It is a continued fight in the microbiology world against these pathogens where as long as the pathogens; particularly viruses, continue to evolve over time no one treatment will continue to work. It is a continuous fight where us, researchers, will have to find new ways to deal with the evolution of these pathogens or else our species and other species too will pay the price. Wish our species good luck in the future, because evolution of bacteria and viruses can cost the lives of any species.

As you can see, here is how monoclonal antibodies can be produced in a mammalian host.

Here is a picture demonstrating one example of viruses evolving