Heterologous protein production in plant systems.

Production of recombinant proteins is primarily established in cultures of mammalian, insect, and bacterial cells. Concurrently, concept of using plants to produce high-value pharmaceuticals such as vaccines, antibodies and dietary proteins have received worldwide attention. Newer technologies for plant transformation such as plastid engineering, agroinfiltration, magnifection and deconstructed viral vectors have been used to enhance protein production in plants along with the inherent advantage of speed, scale and cost of production in plant systems. Production of therapeutic proteins in plants has now a more pragmatic approach when several plant-produced vaccines and antibodies successfully completed Phase I clinical trials in humans and were further scheduled for regulatory approvals to manufacture clinical grade products on large scale safely, efficacious and meeting the quality standards. The main thrust of this review is to summarize the data accumulated over the last two decades and recent development and achievements of the plant derived therapeutics. It also attempts to discuss different strategies employed to increase the production so as to make plants more competitive with the established production systems in this industry.