Biotherapeutics and Bioanalytical Techniques

Many human medicines are biomanufactured by recombinant DNA technology. Colchicine is one of the potential plantbased alkaloid medicines used to treat gout, which is commercially extracted from Gloriosa superba. My laboratory is establishing the biorhizome-based colchicine biomanufacturing technology to produce the drugs. G. superba-based biorhizomes are unique and efficient colchicine biosynthetic mechanisms, which is an advanced biotechnological platform compared to root and cell cultures. Colchicine from biorhizomes could lower upstream biomanufacturing costs, speed production and reduce pesticide contamination. Metabolic engineering of colchicine biosynthetic pathway in biorhizome requires detailed pathway elucidation. The biorhizome-based colchicine biomanufacturing and colchicine pathway elucidation will be presented.