Molecular Farming in Plants

Abstract

Molecular farming can generally be defi ned as the production of molecules (proteins, fatty acids) for the pharmaceutical and chemical industries in transgenic organisms (plants, animals, etc.).Molecular farming in plants has advantageous aspects as biosecurity, they do not bear pathogens for humans or animals, and they do not produce toxins. Also, plant protein synthetic machinery is able to produce complex glycosylated proteins as they have a glycosylation pattern with slight difference respect of that of mammals, and can perform foldings.When displayed in in vitro conditions, molecular farming have the characteristic advantages of that type of culture, mainly the capacity of working under Good Manufactory practices as is required by the pharmaceutical industry. The critical aspects of plants for molecular farming are the different glycosylation patterns respect to mammals, the duration of the productive process, and the relatively low yields.The approval by the FDA of the fi rst medicine to be used in humans, taliglucerase alfa (ELELYSO®), has give an impulse to this technology but there are some drawbacks to be addressed, particularly related to low yields and regulatory aspects.