As a Canadian, the cost of medication in the United States healthcare system is nearly unbelievable to me. With the high cost of many essential drugs, Americans are struggling to get access to medication that could save their lives. However, now Americans suffering from Parkinson’s disease may be able to get their medications much more cheaply. Surprisingly, they might get it through tomatoes.
The Parkinson’s Tomato
A team of scientists at the John Innes Center had begun to genetically modify tomatoes in hopes of developing a better system for distributing the Parkinson’s drug. The genes they were adding to the tomatoes were, according to Science Daily, “responsible for the synthesis of L-DOPA in beetroot where it functions in the production of the pigments betalains. L-DOPA is produced from tyrosine, an amino acid found in many foods.” L-DOPA is a drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease.(1)
The Drug Development Process
In order to do this, “the research team inserted a gene encoding a tyrosinase, an enzyme that uses tyrosine to build molecules such as L-DOPA . This elevated the level of L-DOPA specifically in the fruit part.”
The scientists ended up with about 150mg of L-DOPA in every kg of tomatoes. It is about the same ratio of L-DOPA that would be found in plants that produced it naturally, but without hindrances in the metabolic production that other plants have faced. (1)
The Long-Term Plan For Parkinson’s Drug Delivery
Although L-DOPA is used to treat Parkinson’s, just throwing the genetically modified tomatoes in your salad isn’t going to cut it. The L-DOPA will have to be extracted from the tomatoes, and then refined.
The authors of the study have already been envisioning a way to make that happen. “The idea is that you can grow tomatoes with relatively little infrastructure. As GMOs (genetically modified organisms) you could grow them in screen houses, controlled environments with very narrow meshes, so you would not have pollen escape through insects,” says Professor Cathie Martin, a corresponding author of the study. After you have begun to grow these tomatoes, “then you could scale up at relatively low cost. A local industry could prepare L-DOPA from tomatoes because it’s soluble and you can do extractions. Then you could make a purified product relatively low tech which could be dispensed locally,” she says. (1)
Professor Cathie Martin
Although the process may sound too good to be true, Professor Martin is an authority in the science world. She is a Fellow in the Fellowship of the Royal Society. Becoming a fellow requires a “substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science.” (2)
Why Tomatoes?
L-DOPA is a naturally occurring drug, as previously discussed, but it is also possible to chemically synthesize. However, this drug, also referred to as levodopa and created in 1967, costs $2 per day. While that is less than some other drugs, that price point could make it unaffordable for some lower-income people. Hence, why turning to tomatoes is beneficial. “We have demonstrated that the use of the tyrosinase-expressing tomatoes as a source of L-DOPA is possible. It’s a further demonstration of tomato as a strong option for synthetic biology,” says Dr. Dario Breitel, first author. “Additionally, there were surprising beneficial effects including improvement in shelf-life and raised levels of amino-acids that we can investigate.” (1)
