The plastid genome represents an attractive target of genetic engineering in crop plants. Plastid transgenes often give high expression levels, can be stacked in operons and are largely excluded from pollen transmission. Recent research has greatly expanded our toolbox for plastid genome engineering and many new proof-of-principle applications have highlighted the enormous potential of the tran...

Genetic material in plants is distributed into nucleus, plastids and mitochondria. Plastid has a central role of carrying out photosynthesis in plant cells. Plastid transformation is becoming more popular and an alternative to nuclear gene transformation because of various advantages like high protein levels, the feasibility of expressing multiple proteins from polycistronic mRNAs, and gene con...

DNA-containing cellular compartments in plant cells are the nucleus, plastids, and mitochondria. The nuclear genome, encoding approximately 29,000 to 32,000 genes, is the most common target for biotechnological applications. The number of genes encoded by the plastid and mitochondrial genomes is much smaller, approximately 120 and approximately 60, respectively. The number of processes that may...

The small bacterial-type genome of the plastid (chloroplast) can be engineered by genetic transformation, generating cells and plants with transgenic plastid genomes, also referred to as transplastomic plants. The transformation process relies on homologous recombination, thereby facilitating the site-specific alteration of endogenous plastid genes as well as the precisely targeted insertion of...

Plant carotenoids have unique physiological roles related to specific plastid suborganellar locations. Carotenoid metabolic engineering could enhance plant adaptation to climate change and improve food security and nutritional value. However, lack of fundamental knowledge on carotenoid pathway localization limits targeted engineering. Phytoene synthase (PSY), a major rate-controlling carotenoid...

The chloroplast is a pivotal organelle in plant cells and eukaryotic algae to carry out photosynthesis, which provides the primary source of the world's food. The expression of foreign genes in chloroplasts offers several advantages over their expression in the nucleus: high-level expression, transgene stacking in operons and a lack of epigenetic interference allowing stable transgene expressio...

The ability to manipulate plant fatty acid biosynthesis by using new biotechnological approaches has allowed the production of transgenic plants with unusual fatty acid profile and increased oil content. This review focuses on the production of very long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLCPUFAs) and the increase in oil content in plants using molecular biology tools. Evidences suggest that r...