Expression of a human cDNA in moss results in spliced mRNAs and fragmentary protein isoforms

Abstract

Top et al. report the expression of a human blood-clotting factor IX-encoding cDNA in the moss Physcomitrium patens and demonstrate that in addition to the unspliced full-length transcript, the splicing machinery produced several different transcripts, and thus different protein isoforms, which the authors designate as heterosplicing. The authors present a web application, physCO, to automatize the process of P. patens-specific codon optimization, a tool that can assist in maximized functional protein amounts for biotechnology.