Engineering Plants for the Future: Farming
with Value-Added Harvest
Silvia Massa, Ombretta Presenti, and Eugenio Benvenuto
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2 The Strategies and the Technological Platforms of Plant Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.1 Stable Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.2 Transient Expression (Delivery of Genes to Somatic Tissues) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3 Plant-Made Antigens for Developing Vaccines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4 Plantibodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.1 Plant-Made Antibodies in Cancer Diagnostics and Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.2 Plant-Made Antibodies and Immunotherapy of Infectious Diseases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5 Plant-Made Proteins for Other Pharmacological Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
6 Bringing “Functional” Plants to the Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.1 Good Manufacturing Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.2 Risk Analysis and Regulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.3 Acceptance and Inclusion of Citizens in the Decisional Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Abstract Plants and their rich variety of natural compounds are used to maintain
and to improve health since the earliest stages of civilization. Despite great advances
in synthetic organic chemistry, one fourth of present-day drugs have still a botanical
origin, and we are currently living a revival of interest in new pharmaceuticals from
plant sources.
Modern biotechnology has defined the potential of plants to be systems able
to manufacture not only molecules naturally occurring in plants but also newly
engineered compounds, from small to complex protein molecules, which may
originate even from non-plant sources. Among these compounds, pharmaceuticals
Communicated by Francisco M. Cánovas
S. Massa, O. Presenti, and E. Benvenuto (*)
Department of Sustainability, Division of Biotechnology and Agroindustry, Laboratory of
Biotechnology, ENEA - Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the
Environment, Rome, Italy
e-mail: eugenio.benvenuto@enea.it
© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
Progress in Botany (2019) 80: 65–108, DOI 10.1007/124_2018_20,
Published online: 30 June 2018
65
with Value-Added Harvest
Silvia Massa, Ombretta Presenti, and Eugenio Benvenuto
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2 The Strategies and the Technological Platforms of Plant Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
2.1 Stable Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.2 Transient Expression (Delivery of Genes to Somatic Tissues) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3 Plant-Made Antigens for Developing Vaccines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4 Plantibodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.1 Plant-Made Antibodies in Cancer Diagnostics and Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.2 Plant-Made Antibodies and Immunotherapy of Infectious Diseases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5 Plant-Made Proteins for Other Pharmacological Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
6 Bringing “Functional” Plants to the Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.1 Good Manufacturing Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.2 Risk Analysis and Regulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.3 Acceptance and Inclusion of Citizens in the Decisional Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Abstract Plants and their rich variety of natural compounds are used to maintain
and to improve health since the earliest stages of civilization. Despite great advances
in synthetic organic chemistry, one fourth of present-day drugs have still a botanical
origin, and we are currently living a revival of interest in new pharmaceuticals from
plant sources.
Modern biotechnology has defined the potential of plants to be systems able
to manufacture not only molecules naturally occurring in plants but also newly
engineered compounds, from small to complex protein molecules, which may
originate even from non-plant sources. Among these compounds, pharmaceuticals
Communicated by Francisco M. Cánovas
S. Massa, O. Presenti, and E. Benvenuto (*)
Department of Sustainability, Division of Biotechnology and Agroindustry, Laboratory of
Biotechnology, ENEA - Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the
Environment, Rome, Italy
e-mail: eugenio.benvenuto@enea.it
© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018
Progress in Botany (2019) 80: 65–108, DOI 10.1007/124_2018_20,
Published online: 30 June 2018
65