Key challenges in developing products from transgenic plants

Abstract

The use of plants for the production of plant-made pharmaceuticals (PMPs), plant-made vaccines (PMVs) and plant-made substances of industrial interests through transgenic approach is the sole objective of plant molecular (PM) farming, and it holds great promises in the plant industry. PM farming is advantageous in terms of saving production costs, large-scale production of drugs, animal and human virus-free products, easier storage and transportation of drugs and oral applicability (e.g. edible vaccines). Plant system also offers different platforms, viz. seed-, leaf-, stem-, root- and whole plant-based production in transgenic lines. The other systems such as bacterial, microbial eukaryotes, mammalian cells, insect cells and transgenic animals are expensive. Therefore, transgenic plants have been the subject of considerable attention as new generation bioreactors with respect to their advantages, such as the safety of recombinant proteins (antibodies, enzymes, vaccines, growth factors, etc.) and their potential for the large-scale and low-cost production. However, some of the key challenges that PM farming is facing include technical, economic, safety and regulatory as well as public acceptance. This chapter discusses in detail the challenges in obtaining products from transgenic plants such as expression of the recombinant proteins, downstream processing and purification, glycosylation, regulatory challenges and environmental risks.