Expression of Full Length Monoclonal Antibodies (mAb) in Algal Chloroplast

Antibodies have come to the forefront of protein therapeutics in the past decade and while they are now widely accepted and administered to patients, the cost of using antibody therapy remains extremely high. Here we describe a protocol for the expression of human antibodies using the chloroplast of a single celled green algae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii . This protocol describes the synthesis and cloning of antibody genes, the use of optimal expression vectors, chloroplast transformation methods and screening, expression and purification of antibodies in C. reinhardtii.