Strategies for Efficient and Sustainable Protein Extraction and Purification from Plant Tissues

Recombinant proteins produced in whole plants are usually extracted and purified from leaf or seed tissues. Here we describe a workflow that is suitable for most soluble pharmaceutical proteins produced in leafy biomass. We highlight options to streamline the process, reducing the total process time and costs, and eliminating certain unit operations if the product allows. The overall process is a combination of batch-wise or continuous extraction followed by a series of solid–liquid separation steps, which can be supported by chemically defined additives, and concludes with a sequence of optional membrane-based and regular chromatographic purification operations.