The scientists said the technology can help agriculture and pharma sectors to produce the inhibitors in large quantities with minimal resources.
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The University of Hyderabad (UoH) has been granted a patent for a technology that can facilitate large-scale production of two “farmer-friendly” plant proteins.
The technology, labelled ‘Method for separation and purification of multifunctional Bowman-Birk and Kunitz inhibitors’, was developed in the laboratories of two research scientists from the School of Life Sciences — K. Padmasree from the department of biotechnology and bioinformatics and M.K. Arunasree from the department of animal biology. Mariyamma Gujjarlapudi and Bharti Kotarya took part in performing experiments under their guidance, according to an official release on Saturday.
The patented technology has two distinct features. The first is the separation of plant proteins Bowman-Birk and Kunitz inhibitors, which are generally inseparable, using conventional purification methods and the second is reducing the time required for their independent purification from approximately 10 days to < 24 hours.
Prof. Padmasree said both Bowman-Birk and Kunitz inhibitors present in plants have several biological functions, including defensive roles against invading pests and pathogens. These inhibitors are farmer-friendly as they are effective in the management of pests such as Helicoverpa armigera (a pod borer) and Achaea janata (a castor semilooper) which devastate important crops such as cotton, tobacco, groundnut, brinjal, tomato, bendi, capsicum and castor.
Dr. Arunasree said many proteases involved in the development of cancer and microbial growth act as targets for Bowman-Birk and Kunitz inhibitors. Therefore, the technology developed in the current invention is helpful to both the agriculture sector and pharma companies to produce these inhibitors in large quantities in a limited time using minimal resources and manpower.
