Ranked with tomatoes as one of the most popular vegetables, lettuce looks to become a favourite for scientists searching for new disease treatments. Pills made from lettuce leaves, for example, could help prevent one of the most serious complications of haemophilia treatment, explains Elie Dolgin in the prestigious journal Nature.
Thanks to Queen Victoria and her descendants, haemophilia has become known inaccurately as the ‘royal disease.’ In a spontaneous genetic mutation, Victoria became the carrier of the more serious haemophilia B (clotting factor IX deficiency), which occurs in around one in about 20,000 to 34,000 male births. Much more common is haemophilia A (factor VIII deficiency), present in about one in 5,000 to 10,000 male births.
Factor IX is a protein that helps the blood to form clots. Treating sufferers with replacement coagulating proteins can solve this deficiency. Unfortunately about 30 percent of people with haemophilia A develop antibodies against this treatment, as do about 5 percent of those with haemophilia B.
Alternatives are available but come at a steep price – perhaps as much as $1 million for a single treatment. Preventing antibody formation in the first place would be a much better – and cheaper – solution.
Cue the lettuce. Researchers have genetically engineered the photosynthezing organelles called chloroplasts in lettuce leaves to produce factor IX. While originating in a plant means they will not prevent bleeding in humans, they prevent the immune system from attacking the subsequent therapy. Reduced to freeze-dried form and packaged in pills it offers and elegant if still experimental oral solution.
It is all something to think about when next enjoying a green salad.
Wes Porter is a horticultural consultant and writer based in Toronto. Wes has over 40 years of experience in both temperate and tropical horticulture from three continents.
