Heat treatment alleviates the growth and photosynthetic impairment of transplastomic plants expressing Leishmania infantum Hsp83-Toxoplasma gondii SAG1 fusion protein

•LiHsp83-SAG1 line presented all photosynthetic pigments significantly diminished and the PSII efficiency were strongly reduced.•The expression of CHLI, RSSU and LHCa/b genes did not show significant differences between LiHsp83-SAG1 and control plants.•After the heat treatment, LiHsp83-SAG1 plants showed an important alleviation of their phenotype and an evident recovery of the PSII function.•This is the first report where demonstrated that a transplastomic line performs much better at higher temperatures.