High accumulation of the ManGlcNAc structure by combining N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase I gene suppression and mannosidase I gene overexpression in Nicotiana tabacum SR1.

High accumulation of a single high-mannose glycan structure is important to ensure the quality of therapeutic proteins. We developed a glyco-engineering strategy for ensuring high accumulation of the ManGlcNAc structure by combining N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase I (GnT I) gene suppression and mannosidase I (Man I) gene overexpression. Nicotiana tabacum SR1 was used as the glyco-engineered host owing to the lower risk of pathogenic contamination than that in mammalian cells. We generated three glyco-engineered plant strains (gnt, gnt-MANA1, and gnt-MANA2) with suppression of GnT I or the combined suppression of GnT I and overexpression of Man I A1 or A2. The quantitative reverse transcriptase-PCR analysis showed a higher level of upregulation of Man I expression in gnt-MANA1/A2 plants than in the wild-type plants. Man I activity assay showed that the gnt-MANA1 plants had a higher Man I activity than did the wild-type and gnt-MANA2 plants. N-glycan analysis independently performed on two plants of each plant strain showed that gnt-MANA1 plants had a low abundance of the ManGlcNAc structure (2.8%, 7.1%) and high abundance of the ManGlcNAc structure (80.0%, 82.8%) compared with those in the wild-type and gnt plants. These results indicated that GnT I knockdown suppressed further modification of the ManGlcNAc structure, and Man I overexpression enhanced the conversion of ManGlcNAc structures to the ManGlcNAc structure. The developed glyco-engineered plants have potential for serving as novel expression hosts for therapeutic proteins.