Production of Tailored Recombinant Proteins Using Innovative
Plant-Based Expression Systems

Abstract: The efficient production of customized recombinant proteins such as antibodies, single-chain fragments, receptor proteins, and custom designed peptides is of growing importance for modern bioanalytical applications. These molecules serve as highly specific ligands or target antigens in diagnostic assays and antibody characterization platforms. At Fraunhofer IME, innovative plant-based expression systems have been developed that combine flexibility, scalability, and eukaryotic protein processing capacity.
This seminar will introduce two complementary technologies: (1) transient protein expression in Nicotiana benthamiana, enabling the rapid and scalable production of complex, post-translationally modified proteins using Agrobacterium-mediated delivery; and (2) a cell-free expression system derived from Nicotiana tabacum BY-2 lysates, offering a fast and controllable platform for prototyping and functional studies of challenging proteins. Both systems have demonstrated high productivity and adaptability in diverse projects from vaccine antigen development to recombinant ligand production for analytical assays. Selected examples
will illustrate their application potential for generating bioanalytically relevant proteins. Finally, perspectives will be discussed on how these production systems can be combined with the institute’s advanced screening infrastructure and AI-assisted ligand design to accelerate the discovery of novel, custom-tailored binding molecules.

Biography

Since 2009, Dr. Florian Schröper has been working at the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME in Aachen, Germany, in the Department of Plant Biotechnology and the Department Advanced Detection and Screening Solutions for Biomolecules, focusing on the development of various analytical approaches. Since 2012, he has been the group leader and head of the research area « Innovative Detection and Analytical Systems », where he has developed several detection approaches based on  immunology, qPCR, and next-generation sequencing for various applications. One of the main focuses of his research is magnetic immunosensing and the use of specific magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) for biomedical, agricultural, and food analysis applications. Recent research collaborations with LIB and GeePs laboratories at Sorbonne University were initiated by Dr. Schröper on microfluidic detection using MNPs for pathogen detection focusing on agricultural and environmental applications.