Molecular Farming Pharming Introduction, Crop plants, Biotic stress, Nutraceuticals, Functional foods, Chemicals

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Molecular Farming Pharming Molecular Farming Pharming Introduction Transgenic Plants as Production Systems Transgenic Plants for Recombinant Proteins in Plant Root Exudates Transgenic Plants for Value Added Speciality Crops Transgenic Plants Production of Cyclodextrins Transgenic Plants Bacteria which Produce CGTases Transgenic Plants Production of Polyhydroxybutyrate or PHB Transgenic Plants Production of Human Serum Albumin (HSA) Transgenic Plants Production of Starch Transgenic Plants for Edible Vaccines

Home >> Plant Biotechnology and Genomics >>Molecular Farming Pharming >>Molecular Farming Pharming Introduction

	Molecular Farming/Pharming The production of transgenic plants for genetic improvement of crop plants, not only for providing them with resistance against a variety of biotic and abiotic stresses, but a1so for improvement in the nutritional quality of food crops (functional foods and nutraceuticals). An additional goal for the production of transgenic plants has been their use as factories for manufacturing speciality chemicals and pharmaceuticals that are traditionally produced by cultured mammalian cells, bacteria and fungi. Transgenic crops can also be used for improvement in the production of sugars, fatty acids, starches, celluloses, rubber and wax that are traditionally obtained from plants, which are poor production systems for these chemicals.
Several biotechnology companies have developed and patented efficient plant expression systems that would allow. Over expression of transgenes to give high yields of these speciality chemicals. The product purification from these transgenic crops is often expensive, and methods are being developed to overcome this problem by using fusions with proteins like oleosins for partitioning the recombinant proteins into the oil bodies. However, in case of biopharmaceuticals, the transgenic plants also provide for products that can be directly ingested thus eliminating the need for purification. For instance, biopharmaceuticals and edible vaccines can be stored and distributed as seeds, tubers or fruits, making immunization programme in developing countries cheaper and easier to administer. It is estimated that depending upon the crop, the cost of production of a recombinant protein in a transgenic crop could be 10- to 50-fold cheaper than producing the same protein in E. coli cells at the industrial scale.
The use of genetic engineering for the production of biopharmaceuticals like erythropoietin to treat anemia, and insulin to treat diabetes are well known. The demand of these and other therapeutic recombinant proteins will certainly increase in future, and the transgenic plants provide excellent production systems to produce these chemicals in a cost-effective manner at the industrial scale. Some of the advantages of using transgenic plants for production of speciality chemicals and biopharmaceuticals include the following: (i) reduced health risk due to pathogen contamination; (ii) comparatively high yields; (iii) production in seeds or other storage organs thus obtaining the need to punctuation; (iv) little capital investment, since infrastructure for cultivation, harvesting, storage and processing of transgenic crops would already exist.
Keeping these advantages in view, potential of the production of a variety biopharmaceuticals in transgenic plants has already been demonstrated. Clinical trails for the first biopharmaceutical produced by transgenic crops, were also underway during 2000-01. For the first time in the year 1997, a biopharmaceutical (called hirudin, because it was originally isolated .from the leech, Hirudo medicinalis) was also commercially produced from a transgenic crop in Canada. Hirudin was produced as fusions with oleosin, which facilitated extraction and purification of this protein, using oil bodies, because oleosin is targeted to oil bodies.

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Factors Affecting Choice of Transgenic Plants for Vaccines Transgenic Tobacco, Potato and Banana as Edible Vaccines Transgenics as Edible Vaccines for Hepatitis B The Production of Vaccines in Transgenic Plants Alternative to Transgenic Plant for Vaccine Production Transgenic Plants for Antibodies Production of Antibodies in Transgenic Plants Transgenic Plants as Factories for Biopharmaceuticals Production of Biopharmaceuticals in Transgenic Plants Production of Glucocerebrosidase for 'Gaucher's Disease' Production of Hirudin (an Anticoagulant) for 'Thrombosis'

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