Patent ID: 6852319

Claim:
A method of passively immunizing a human or non-human animal subject against a preselected antigen using an immunoglobulin molecule produced in transgenic plants, said method comprising (a) obtaining a source of antigen-specific immunoglobulin from transgenic plant cells producing antigen specific immunoglobulin, said plant cells containing nucleotide sequences encoding an immunoglobulin heavy chain polypeptide and an immunoglobulin light chain polypeptide wherein said nucleotide sequences also encode a leader sequence for each polypeptide wherein each leader sequence forms a secretion signal that is cleaved from each of said immunoglobulin heavy chain and light chain polypeptides following proteolytic processing; and (b) administering therapeutic amount of said antigen-specific immunoglobulin molecule to said subject, thereby passively immunizing a human or non-human animal subject against a preselected antigen.