Plants: Emerging Bio-Manufacturing Chassis for Bioactive Molecules

Dear Colleagues,

Plants are rapidly emerging as versatile and sustainable bio-manufacturing platforms for producing a wide spectrum of bioactive molecules, ranging from secondary metabolites to recombinant proteins and enzymes for industrial and therapeutic applications. Compared with traditional microbial or mammalian platforms, plant-based systems offer unique advantages in scalability, safety, and cost-effectiveness, making them increasingly attractive for large-scale biomanufacturing. In addition, plants are capable of performing complex post-translational modifications and can be cultivated under contained or field conditions using renewable resources, further enhancing their sustainability.

Recent advances in metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, and genome editing have enabled precise and efficient modulation of plant metabolic pathways and heterologous expression systems, greatly expanding their potential as cost-effective and flexible production chassis. These technologies allow researchers to fine-tune gene expression, improve product yield and stability, and design novel biosynthetic pathways.

This Special Issue aims to highlight recent breakthroughs in plant-based biomanufacturing, including innovative strategies for pathway optimization, expression enhancement, and downstream processing. We also welcome studies demonstrating the translational potential of plant-derived bioactive molecules in medicine, agriculture, and industry, as well as review articles that discuss emerging trends, technical challenges, and future directions in this rapidly advancing field.

Prof. Dr. Jianfeng Xu
Guest Editor

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