Plant Biotechnology and Agriculture

Abstract

The area of plant-made pharmaceuticals is an actively developing field and its progress has recently been the subject of a number of reviews. This chapter provides a general overview of the plant-based manufacturing platform as a novel technical process and a new business opportunity, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of plants and different plant expression systems, as compared to the established manufacturing hosts and expression platforms. It is important to mention that most of the currently announced clinical trials are based on the biopharmaceuticals produced using transient expression systems. These include recombinant antigens and immunoglobulins produced using deconstructed viral vectors or a nonviral transient system. Such popularity of the transient systems reflects their speed and yields, but it also illustrates their scalability and acceptance by the regulatory agencies. The chapter discusses the nuclear transformation, plastid transformation, and transient expression system. Recombinant proteins can be manufactured in different living cells and organisms, and historically, for pharmaceutical proteins, bacteria, yeasts, and animal cells have been the main industrial manufacturing hosts.