Molecular farming, or bio-pharming, has recently received much of attention for production of valuable recombinant proteins, with a few already being marketed. The use of whole plants for synthesis of pharmaceutical proteins offers various advantages in economy, scalability and safety over conventional production systems. GM plants are suitable for the inexpensive production of large amounts of...

Molecular farming, or bio-pharming, has recently received much of attention for production of valuable recombinant proteins, with a few already being marketed. The use of whole plants for synthesis of pharmaceutical proteins offers various advantages in economy, scalability and safety over conventional production systems. GM plants are suitable for the inexpensive production of large amounts of...

The use of a nonlethal selection scheme, most often using the aadA gene that confers resistance to spectinomycin and streptomycin, has been considered critical for recovery of plastid transformation events. In this study, the plastid-lethal markers, glyphosate or phosphinothricin herbicides, were used to develop a selection scheme for plastids that circumvents the need for integration of an ant...

We investigated the size of flanking DNA incorporated into the tobacco plastid genome alongside a selectable antibiotic resistance mutation. The results showed that integration of a long uninterrupted region of homologous DNA, rather than of small fragments as previously thought, is the more likely event in plastid transformation of land plants. Transforming plasmid pJS75 contains a 6.2-kb DNA ...

Several biological containment methods have been developed to reduce pollen dispersal; many of them only have a proof of concept in a model plant species. This review focuses on biological containment measures which were tested for their long-term efficiency at the greenhouse or field scale level, i.e. plastid transformation, transgene excission, cleistogamy and cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS)...

Phosphinothricin (PPT) is the active component of a family of environmentally safe, nonselective herbicides. Resistance to PPT in transgenic crops has been reported by nuclear expression of a bar transgene encoding phosphinothricin acetyltransferase, a detoxifying enzyme. We report here expression of a bacterial bar gene (b-bar1) in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum cv Petit Havana) plastids that conf...

Autoantigen-specific immunological tolerance represents a central objective for prevention of type 1 diabetes (T1D). Previous studies demonstrated mucosal antigen administration results in expansion of Foxp3+ and LAP+ regulatory T cells (Tregs), suggesting oral delivery of self-antigens might represent an effective means for modulating autoimmune disease. Early preclinical experiments using the...

The intricate assembly of photosystem I (PSI), a large multiprotein complex in the thylakoid membrane, depends on auxiliary protein factors. One of the essential assembly factors for PSI is encoded by ycf3 (hypothetical chloroplast reading frame number 3) in the chloroplast genome of algae and higher plants. To identify novel factors involved in PSI assembly, we constructed an epitope-tagged ve...