Production of industrial proteins in plants

Abstract

The plant production system is advantageous for industrial enzymes. Enzymes with large scale products that demand low cost manufacturing are the markets of choice for plants. The plant production system is also advantageous for products that are harmful to single cell systems, for example oxidation/reduction (redox) enzymes. Four classes of enzymes are discussed in this chapter-xylanases, redox enzymes, amylases and cellulases. Examples of each of these classes of enzyme have been produced in plants-some as demonstration projects, others with the intent to sell the product. The authors have chosen specific examples to describe the advantages of the plant system, issues that have arisen, and potential for addressing markets. These case studies illustrate the value of using plants for production with simple agricultural inputs of sunlight, nutrients and water. With the developing demand for biofuels and biobased products, large volume enzyme markets for processing agricultural materials are rapidly becoming a demand. The logical system for producing those enzymes is in co-products of the feedstock materials. Our examples below illustrate the system.