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New Advances in Plant and Algae Molecular Farming
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New Advances in Plant and Algae Molecular Farming

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Plant Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2022) | Viewed by 7608

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Nunzia Scotti

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
CNR-IBBR, National Research Council of Italy, Institute of Biosciences and BioResources, Via Universita’, 133 80055 Portici, NA, Italy
Interests: plant plastid genome; plant mitochondria genome; plastid biotechnology; plant molecular farming; chloroplast-to-nucleous communication in plants; plant cytoplasmic male sterility; plant organelle diversity
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over past three decades, plants, and subsequently algae, have emerged as alternative hosts for the production of recombinant proteins or biologically active compounds, offering sustainable and environmentally friendly platforms. Initially, molecular farming was seen as appealing due to its several advantages, such as the low costs of growing plants, the high scalability of agricultural production, and the absence of human pathogens or their toxins. Furthermore, similarly to other eukaryotic systems, plants, and algae make it possible to produce, correctly fold, and post-translationally modify complex proteins. Although in the past few years several hosts and/or expression technologies have been successfully developed, molecular farming does not have a track record of success at the commercial level, especially for pharmaceutical products, mainly due to the lack of standardized methods and good manufacturing practices. Recently, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has posed several global challenges, refocusing the attention toward the development of new concepts of plant/algae molecular farming.

The goal of this Special Issue is to provide new advances in the field of biotechnology to produce different molecules with diverse industrial applications.

In particular, this issue is open to research articles and reviews focused on different biotechnologies (transient expression platforms, stable genetic transformation methods, cell factories, etc.) or phototrophic organisms that are able to produce recombinant proteins and/or bioactive compounds.

Dr. Nunzia Scotti
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • plants
  • algae
  • in vitro cell cultures
  • transient systems
  • nuclear transformation
  • plastid transformation
  • elicitation
  • recombinant proteins
  • bioactive compounds

Published Papers (3 papers)

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23 pages, 1964 KiB  
Review
Plastid Transformation: New Challenges in the Circular Economy Era
by Rachele Tamburino, Loredana Marcolongo, Lorenza Sannino, Elena Ionata and Nunzia Scotti
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(23), 15254; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms232315254 - 3 Dec 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1947
Abstract
In a circular economy era the transition towards renewable and sustainable materials is very urgent. The development of bio-based solutions, that can ensure technological circularity in many priority areas (e.g., agriculture, biotechnology, ecology, green industry, etc.), is very strategic. The agricultural and fishing [...] Read more.
In a circular economy era the transition towards renewable and sustainable materials is very urgent. The development of bio-based solutions, that can ensure technological circularity in many priority areas (e.g., agriculture, biotechnology, ecology, green industry, etc.), is very strategic. The agricultural and fishing industry wastes represent important feedstocks that require the development of sustainable and environmentally-friendly industrial processes to produce and recover biofuels, chemicals and bioactive molecules. In this context, the replacement, in industrial processes, of chemicals with enzyme-based catalysts assures great benefits to humans and the environment. In this review, we describe the potentiality of the plastid transformation technology as a sustainable and cheap platform for the production of recombinant industrial enzymes, summarize the current knowledge on the technology, and display examples of cellulolytic enzymes already produced. Further, we illustrate several types of bacterial auxiliary and chitinases/chitin deacetylases enzymes with high biotechnological value that could be manufactured by plastid transformation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances in Plant and Algae Molecular Farming)
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21 pages, 936 KiB  
Review
Compendium on Food Crop Plants as a Platform for Pharmaceutical Protein Production
by Aneta Gerszberg and Katarzyna Hnatuszko-Konka
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(6), 3236; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23063236 - 17 Mar 2022
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3259
Abstract
Tremendous advances in crop biotechnology related to the availability of molecular tools and methods developed for transformation and regeneration of specific plant species have been observed. As a consequence, the interest in plant molecular farming aimed at producing the desired therapeutic proteins has [...] Read more.
Tremendous advances in crop biotechnology related to the availability of molecular tools and methods developed for transformation and regeneration of specific plant species have been observed. As a consequence, the interest in plant molecular farming aimed at producing the desired therapeutic proteins has significantly increased. Since the middle of the 1980s, recombinant pharmaceuticals have transformed the treatment of many serious diseases and nowadays are used in all branches of medicine. The available systems of the synthesis include wild-type or modified mammalian cells, plants or plant cell cultures, insects, yeast, fungi, or bacteria. Undeniable benefits such as well-characterised breeding conditions, safety, and relatively low costs of production make plants an attractive yet competitive platform for biopharmaceutical production. Some of the vegetable plants that have edible tubers, fruits, leaves, or seeds may be desirable as inexpensive bioreactors because these organs can provide edible vaccines and thus omit the purification step of the final product. Some crucial facts in the development of plant-made pharmaceuticals are presented here in brief. Although crop systems do not require more strictly dedicated optimization of methodologies at any stages of the of biopharmaceutical production process, here we recall the complete framework of such a project, along with theoretical background. Thus, a brief review of the advantages and disadvantages of different systems, the principles for the selection of cis elements for the expression cassettes, and available methods of plant transformation, through to the protein recovery and purification stage, are all presented here. We also outline the achievements in the production of biopharmaceuticals in economically important crop plants and provide examples of their clinical trials and commercialization. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances in Plant and Algae Molecular Farming)
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12 pages, 2903 KiB  
Article
Tobacco Plastid Transformation as Production Platform of Lytic Polysaccharide MonoOxygenase Auxiliary Enzymes
by Rachele Tamburino, Daniela Castiglia, Loredana Marcolongo, Lorenza Sannino, Elena Ionata and Nunzia Scotti
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24(1), 309; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24010309 - 24 Dec 2022
Viewed by 1647
Abstract
Plant biomass is the most abundant renewable resource in nature. In a circular economy perspective, the implementation of its bioconversion into fermentable sugars is of great relevance. Lytic Polysaccharide MonoOxygenases (LPMOs) are accessory enzymes able to break recalcitrant polysaccharides, boosting biomass conversion and [...] Read more.
Plant biomass is the most abundant renewable resource in nature. In a circular economy perspective, the implementation of its bioconversion into fermentable sugars is of great relevance. Lytic Polysaccharide MonoOxygenases (LPMOs) are accessory enzymes able to break recalcitrant polysaccharides, boosting biomass conversion and subsequently reducing costs. Among them, auxiliary activity of family 9 (AA9) acts on cellulose in synergism with traditional cellulolytic enzymes. Here, we report for the first time, the production of the AA9 LPMOs from the mesophilic Trichoderma reesei (TrAA9B) and the thermophilic Thermoascus aurantiacus (TaAA9B) microorganisms in tobacco by plastid transformation with the aim to test this technology as cheap and sustainable manufacture platform. In order to optimize recombinant protein accumulation, two different N-terminal regulatory sequences were used: 5′ untranslated region (5′-UTR) from T7g10 gene (DC41 and DC51 plants), and 5′ translation control region (5′-TCR), containing the 5′-UTR and the first 14 amino acids (Downstream Box, DB) of the plastid atpB gene (DC40 and DC50 plants). Protein yields ranged between 0.5 and 5% of total soluble proteins (TSP). The phenotype was unaltered in all transplastomic plants, except for the DC50 line accumulating AA9 LPMO at the highest level, that showed retarded growth and a mild pale green phenotype. Oxidase activity was spectrophotometrically assayed and resulted higher for the recombinant proteins without the N-terminal fusion (DC41 and DC51), with a 3.9- and 3.4-fold increase compared to the fused proteins. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue New Advances in Plant and Algae Molecular Farming)
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