Researchers have made an advance towards engineering plants which are capable of producing gelatin, a move which would enable pharmaceutical companies to produce capsules and tablets without animal-sourced gelatin.
Gelatin is used to produce capsules and tablets for medicinal purposes, but production currently requires the breakdown of collagen from animal skin, tendon, bone, cartilage and connective tissue.
It is not currently possible to obtain gelatin from any naturally-occurring plant source, but scientists have now managed to modify corn plants so that they produce gelatin and developed a purification process to recover the gelatin.
Dr Charles Glatz, a chemical engineer at Iowa State University, commented: "Protein production from transgenic plants is a challenging process, with potential pitfalls all along the way.
He added: "It is important to develop methods in the early stages of the development programme to purify gelatin to demonstrate that it can be produced properly."
The research, which was presented at the 234th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, suggests that corn could provide a viable, low-cost production method for gelatin.
Researchers have made an advance towards engineering plants which are capable of producing gelatin, a move which would enable pharmaceutical companies to produce capsules and tablets without animal-sourced gelatin.
