Genetically modified crops: success, safety assessment, and public concern

With the emergence of transgenic technologies, new ways to improve the agronomic performance of crops for food, feed, and processing applications have been devised. In addition, ability to express foreign genes using transgenic technologies has opened up options for producing large quantities of commercially important industrial or pharmaceutical products in plants. Despite this high adoption rate and future promises, there is a multitude of concerns about the impact of genetically modified (GM) crops on the environment. Potential contamination of the environment and food chains has prompted detailed consideration of how such crops and the molecules that they produce can be effectively isolated and contained. One of the reasonable steps after creating a transgenic plant is to evaluate its potential benefits and risks to the environment and these should be compared to those generated by traditional agricultural practices. The precautionary approach in risk management of GM plants may make it necessary to monitor significant wild and weed populations that might be affected by transgene escape. Effective risk assessment and monitoring mechanisms are the basic prerequisites of any legal framework to adequately address the risks and watch out for new risks. Several agencies in different countries monitor the release of GM organisms or frame guidelines for the appropriate application of recombinant organisms in agro-industries so as to assure the safe use of recombinant organisms and to achieve sound overall development. We feel that it is important to establish an internationally harmonized framework for the safe handling of recombinant DNA organisms within a few years.This is IMTECH Communication No. 038/2005.     

High-value products from transgenic maize

Maize (also known as corn) is a domesticated cereal grain that has been grown as food and animal feed for tens of thousands of years. It is currently the most widely grown crop in the world, and is used not only for food/feed but also to produce ethanol, industrial starches and oils. Maize is now at the beginning of a new agricultural revolution, where the grains are used as factories to synthesize high-value molecules. In this article we look at the diversity of high-value products from maize, recent technological advances in the field and the emerging regulatory framework that governs how transgenic maize plants and their products are grown, used and traded.     

转基因植物表达药用蛋白的研究进展

基因工程技术的进步使得转基因植物广泛应用于工业、农业各个领域,尤其在医药制造领域。研究成果表明,转基因植物作为生物反应器在制备药用蛋白,如重组疫苗、重组动物抗体、细胞因子等方面较其他表达系统,如微生物及动物表达系统具有成本低、应用安全等优势,但在工业化技术方面仍存在障碍。     

Improving containment strategies in biopharming

This review examines the challenges of segregating biopharmed crops expressing pharmaceutical or veterinary agents from mainstream crops, particularly those destined for food or feed use. The strategy of using major food crops as production vehicles for the expression of pharmaceutical or veterinary agents is critically analysed in the light of several recent episodes of contamination of the human food chain by non-approved crop varieties. Commercially viable strategies to limit or avoid biopharming intrusion into the human food chain require the more rigorous segregation of food and non-food varieties of the same crop species via a range of either physical or biological methods. Even more secure segregation is possible by the use of non-food crops, non-crop plants or in vitro plant cultures as production platforms for biopharming. Such platforms already under development range from outdoor-grown Nicotiana spp. to glasshouse-grown Arabidopsis , lotus and moss. Amongst the more effective methods for biocontainment are the plastid expression of transgenes, inducible and transient expression systems, and physical containment of plants or cell cultures. In the current atmosphere of heightened concerns over food safety and biosecurity, the future of biopharming may be largely determined by the extent to which the sector is able to maintain public confidence via a more considered approach to containment and security of its plant production systems.     

Genetic transformation technology: Status and problems

Summary Transfer of genes from heterologous species provides the means of selectively introducing new traits into crop plants and expanding the gene pool beyond what has been available to traditional breeding systems. With the recent advances in genetic engineering of plants, it is now feasible to introduce into crop plants, genes that have previously been inaccessible to the conventional plant breeder, or which did not exist in the crop of interest. This holds a tremendous potential for the genetic enhancement of important food crops. However, the availability of efficient transformation methods to introduce foreign DNA can be a substantial barrier to the application of recombinant DNA methods in some crop plants. Despite significant advances over the past decades, development of efficient transformation methods can take many years of painstaking research. The major components for the development of transgenic plants include the development of reliable tissue culture regeneration systems, preparation of gene constructs and efficient transformation techniques for the introduction of genes into the crop plants, recovery and multiplication of transgenic plants, molecular and genetic characterization of transgenic plants for stable and efficient gene expression, transfer of genes to elite cultivars by conventional breeding methods if required, and the evaluation of transgenic plants for their effectiveness in alleviating the biotic and abiotic stresses without being an environmental biohazard. Amongst these, protocols for the introduction of genes, including the efficient regeneration of shoots in tissue cultures, and transformation methods can be major bottlenecks to the application of genetic transformation technology. Some of the key constraints in transformation procedures and possible solutions for safe development and deployment of transgenic plants for crop improvement are discussed.     

Plant molecular farming: opportunities and challenges

Production of foreign molecules in transgenic plants is anticipated to be an alternative to already established, microbial or animal expression systems with lower production costs. This article reviews the different technologies and approaches currently used to produce economically interesting molecules in plants or plant cell cultures, to evaluate their technical feasibility and economic implications, and to assess the potential socioeconomic and environmental impacts deriving from the adoption of molecular farming products.     

Biotechnological potential of inulin for bioprocesses

Inulin consists of linear chains of β-2,1-linked d-fructofuranose molecules terminated by a glucose residue through a sucrose-type linkage at the reducing end. In this review article, inulin and its applications in bioprocesses are overviewed. The tubers of many plants, such as Jerusalem artichoke, chicory, dahlia, and yacon contain a large amount of inulin. Inulin can be actively hydrolyzed by microbial inulinases to produce fructose, glucose and inulooligosaccharides (IOS). The fructose and glucose formed can be further transformed into ethanol, single-cell protein, single cell oil and other useful products by different microorganisms. IOS formed have many functions. Therefore, inulin can be widely used in food, feed, pharmaceutical, chemical and biofuels industries.     

Der Beitrag der Grünen Gentechnik

Yield increase: the contribution of plant biotechnology Modern plant breeding is facing increasing challenges to meet future needs caused by global climate changes, decreasing reserves of fossil fuels, an increasing world population as well as an aging society. Therefore, besides input traits, breeding aims focus on renewable resources and to ensure production of sufficient high quality food and feed. In particular, the world‐wide rising in energy demand harbors the risk that more and more agricultural land will be used for industrial purposes instead for food production. Therefore, breeding of highly productive crop plants for the production of valuable biological materials is of great importance. To optimize the production of valuable compounds a profound molecular and biochemical knowledge of the underlying metabolic pathways and the availability of technologies for the transfer of these findings into crop plants are needed. Plant biotechnology can be a key technology being important for deciphering molecular relationships as well as being required for the implementation of these findings into breeding programs.     

Origins of food crops connect countries worldwide

Research into the origins of food plants has led to the recognition that specific geographical regions around the world have been of particular importance to the development of agricultural crops. Yet the relative contributions of these different regions in the context of current food systems have not been quantified. Here we determine the origins (‘primary regions of diversity’) of the crops comprising the food supplies and agricultural production of countries worldwide. We estimate the degree to which countries use crops from regions of diversity other than their own (‘foreign crops’), and quantify changes in this usage over the past 50 years. Countries are highly interconnected with regard to primary regions of diversity of the crops they cultivate and/or consume. Foreign crops are extensively used in food supplies (68.7% of national food supplies as a global mean are derived from foreign crops) and production systems (69.3% of crops grown are foreign). Foreign crop usage has increased significantly over the past 50 years, including in countries with high indigenous crop diversity. The results provide a novel perspective on the ongoing globalization of food systems worldwide, and bolster evidence for the importance of international collaboration on genetic resource conservation and exchange.     

Transgenic barley: A prospective tool for biotechnology and agriculture

Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is one of the founder crops of agriculture, and today it is the fourth most important cereal grain worldwide. Barley is used as malt in brewing and distilling industry, as an additive for animal feed, and as a component of various food and bread for human consumption. Progress in stable genetic transformation of barley ensures a potential for improvement of its agronomic performance or use of barley in various biotechnological and industrial applications. Recently, barley grain has been successfully used in molecular farming as a promising bioreactor adapted for production of human therapeutic proteins or animal vaccines. In addition to development of reliable transformation technologies, an extensive amount of various barley genetic resources and tools such as sequence data, microarrays, genetic maps, and databases has been generated. Current status on barley transformation technologies including gene transfer techniques, targets, and progeny stabilization, recent trials for improvement of agricultural traits and performance of barley, especially in relation to increased biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, and potential use of barley grain as a protein production platform have been reviewed in this study. Overall, barley represents a promising tool for both agricultural and biotechnological transgenic approaches, and is considered an ancient but rediscovered crop as a model industrial platform for molecular farming.     

Genetic engineering approaches to improve bioethanol production from maize

Biofuels such as bioethanol are becoming a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Utilizing agricultural biomass for the production of biofuel has drawn much interest in many science and engineering disciplines. As one of the major crops, maize offers promise in this regard. Compared to other crops with biofuel potential, maize can provide both starch (seed) and cellulosic (stover) material for bioethanol production. However, the combination of food, feed and fuel in one crop, although appealing, raises concerns related to the land delineation and distribution of maize grown for energy versus food and feed. To avoid this dilemma, the conversion of maize biomass into bioethanol must be improved. Conventional breeding, molecular marker assisted breeding and genetic engineering have already had, and will continue to have, important roles in maize improvement. The rapidly expanding information from genomics and genetics combined with improved genetic engineering technologies offer a wide range of possibilities for enhanced bioethanol production from maize.     

Delivery of Beneficial Microbes via Seed Coating for Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Production: A Critical Review

Journal of Plant Growth Regulation - Medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) producing a myriad of chemicals can be utilized in numerous sectors such as pharmaceutical products, feed and food...     

Genetic transformation of wheat: progress during the 1990s into the Millennium

Wheat transformation technology has progressed rapidly during the past decade. Initially, procedures developed for protoplast isolation and culture, electroporation- and polyethylene glycol (PEG)-induced DNA transfer enabled foreign genes to be introduced into wheat cells. The development of biolistic (microprojectile) bombardment procedures led to a more efficient approach for direct gene transfer. More recently, Agrobacterium-mediated gene delivery procedures, initially developed for the transformation of rice, have also been used to generate transgenic wheat plants. This review summarises the considerable progress in wheat transformation achieved during the last decade. An increase in food production is essential in order to sustain the increasing world population. This could be achieved by the development of higher yielding varieties with improved nutritional quality and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses. Although conventional breeding will continue to play a major role in increasing crop yield, laboratory-based techniques, such as genetic transformation to introduce novel genes into crop plants, will be essential in complementing existing breeding technologies. A decade ago, cereals were considered recalcitrant to transformation. Since then, a significant research effort has been focused on cereals because of their agronomic status, leading to improved genetic transformation procedures (Bommineni and Jauhar 1997). Initially, the genetic transformation of cereals relied on the introduction of DNA into protoplasts and the subsequent production of callus from which fertile plants were regenerated. More recently, major advances have been accomplished in the regeneration of fertile plants from a range of source tissues, providing an essential foundation for the generation of transgenic plants. This review summarises procedures, vectors and target tissues used for transformation, high-lights the limitations of current approaches and discusses future trends. The citation of references is limited, where possible, to the most relevant or recent reports.     

Advances in Transgenic Rice Biotechnology

Rice is the most amenable crop plant for genetic manipulation amongst monocots due to its small genome size, enriched genetic map, availability of entire genome sequence, and relative ease of transformation. Improvement in agronomic traits of rice is bound to affect a sizeable population since it is a primary source of sustenance. Recent advances like use of ‘clean gene’ technology or matrix attachment regions would help improve rice transformation. Function of several novel genes and their promoters has been analyzed in transgenic rice. Significant progress has been made in introducing traits like herbicide, biotic stress and abiotic stress tolerance. Attempts also have been made to enhance nutritional characteristics of the grain and yield. Identification of genes controlling growth and development can be used to modify plant architecture and heading period. Transgenic rice can serve as a biofactory for the production of molecules of pharmaceutical and industrial utility. The drive to apply transgenic rice for public good as well as commercial gains has fueled research to an all time high. Successful field trials and biosafety of transgenic rice have been reported. This would act as a catalyst for greater acceptance of genetically modified food crops. The lessons learnt from rice can be extended to other cereals thereby opening new opportunities and possibilities.     

High‐level expression of human immunodeficiency virus antigens from the tobacco and tomato plastid genomes

Transgene expression from the plant's plastid genome represents a promising strategy in molecular farming because of the plastid's potential to accumulate foreign proteins to high levels and the increased biosafety provided by the maternal mode of organelle inheritance. In this article, we explore the potential of transplastomic plants to produce human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antigens as potential components of an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) vaccine. It is shown that the HIV antigens p24 (the major target of T‐cell‐mediated immune responses in HIV‐positive individuals) and Nef can be expressed to high levels in plastids of tobacco, a non‐food crop, and tomato, a food crop with an edible fruit. Optimized p24‐Nef fusion gene cassettes trigger antigen protein accumulation to up to approximately 40% of the plant's total protein, demonstrating the great potential of transgenic plastids to produce AIDS vaccine components at low cost and high yield.     

A new era for plant biotechnology. A combination of pharmaceutical applications, technologies and safety measures could lead to new applications for genetically modified plants

New applications and technologies, and more rigorous safety measures could herald a new era for genetically modified crops with improved traits, for use in agriculture and the pharmaceutical industry.The imminent prospect of the first approval of a plant-made pharmaceutical (PMP) for human use could herald a new era for applied plant science, after a decade of public backlash against genetically modified crops, particularly in Europe. Yet, the general resistance to genetically modified organisms might have done plant biotechnology a favour in the long run, by forcing it to adopt more-rigorous procedures for efficacy and safety in line with the pharmaceutical industry. This could, in turn, lead to renewed vigour for plant science, with the promise of developing not only food crops that deliver benefits to consumers and producers, but also a wide range of new pharmaceuticals.This is certainly the view of David Aviezer, CEO of Protalix, an Israeli company that has developed what could become the first recombinant therapeutic protein from plants to treat Gaucher disease. The protein is called taliglucerase alpha; it is a recombinant human form of the enzyme glucocerebrosidase that is produced in genetically engineered carrot cells. This enzyme has a crucial role in the breakdown of glycolipids in the cell membrane and is either used to provide energy or for cellular recognition. Deficiency of this enzyme causes accumulation of lipids with a variety of effects including premature death.“My feeling is that there is a dramatic change in this area with a shift away from the direction where a decade ago biotech companies like Monsanto and Dow went with growing transgenic plants in an open field, and instead moving this process into a more regulatory well-defined process inside a clean room,” Aviezer said. “Now the process is taking place in confined conditions and is very highly regulated as in the pharmaceutical industry.”…resistance to genetically modified organisms might have done plant biotechnology a favour […] forcing it to adopt more-rigorous procedures for efficacy and safety…He argues that this is ushering in a new era for plant biotechnology that could lead to greater public acceptance, although he denies that the move to clean-room development has been driven purely by the environmental backlash against genetically modified organisms in the late 1990s and early 2000s. “That was one aspect, but I think the move has been coming more from an appreciation that biopharmaceuticals require a more regulatory defined setting than is achieved at the moment with transgenic plants.”Interest in deriving pharmaceuticals from plants, known colloquially as ‘pharming'', first took off in the 1990s after researchers showed that monoclonal antibodies could be made in tobacco plants (Hiatt et al, 1989). This led to genetic engineering of plants to produce vaccines, antibodies and proteins for therapeutics, but none gained regulatory approval, mostly because of safety concerns. Moreover, the plants were grown in open fields, therefore attracting the same criticisms as transgenic food crops. In fact, a recent study showed that the views of the public on pharming depended on the product and the means to produce it; the researchers found increasing acceptance if the plants were used to produce therapeutics against severe diseases and grown in containment (Pardo et al, 2009).However, it was the technical challenges involved in purification and the associated regulatory issues that really delayed the PMP field, according to George Lomonossoff, project leader in biological chemistry at the John Innes Centre for plant research in Norwich in the UK, part of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). “Extraction from plants required the development of systems which are not clogged by the large amounts of fibrous material, mainly cellulose, and the development of GMP [good manufacturing practice; quality and testing guidelines for pharmaceutical manufacture] compliant methods of purification which are distinct from those required from, say, mammalian cells,” said Lomonossoff. “All this is very time consuming.”“Secondly there was no regulatory framework in place to assess the risks associated with proteins produced in plants, and determining how equivalent they are to mammalian-cell-produced material and what kind of contaminants you might have to guard against,” Lomonossoff added. “Again, attempting to address all possible concerns is a lengthy and expensive process.” Yet recent work by Protalix and a few other companies, such as Dow Agrosciences, has given grounds for optimism that purification and GMP-compliant methods of production have finally been established, Lomonossoff added.…a recent study showed that the views of the public on pharming depended on the product and the means to produce it…The first important breakthrough for PMPs came in 2006, when Dow Agrosciences gained regulatory approval from the US Department of Agriculture for a vaccine against Newcastle disease, a contagious bird infection caused by paramyxovirus PMV-1. “Though the vaccine, produced in tobacco-suspension culture cells, was never deployed commercially, it showed that regulatory approval for a plant-made pharmaceutical can be obtained, albeit for veterinary use in this case,” Lomonossoff said.As approval is imminent for taliglucerase alpha for human use, it is natural to ask why plants, as opposed to micro-organisms and animals, are worth the effort as sources of vaccines, antibiotics or hormones. There are three reasons: first, plants can manufacture some existing drugs more cheaply; second, they can do it more quickly; and third, and perhaps most significantly, they will be able to manufacture more complex proteins that cannot be produced with sufficient yield in any other way.An important example in the first category is insulin, which is being manufactured in increasing quantities to treat type 1 diabetes and some cases of type 2 diabetes. Until the arrival of recombinant DNA technology, replacement insulin was derived from the pancreases of animals in abattoirs, mostly cattle and pigs, but it is now more often produced from transgenic Escherichia coli, or sometimes yeast. Recently, there has been growing interest in using plants rather than bacteria as sources of insulin (Davidson, 2004; Molony et al, 2005). SemBioSys, a plant biotechnology company based in Calgary, Canada, is now developing systems to produce insulin and other therapeutic proteins in the seeds of safflower, an oilseed crop (Boothe et al, 2009).…plants can in principle be engineered to produce any protein, including animal ones…“We have developed technology that combines the high-capacity, low-cost production of therapeutic proteins in seeds with a novel technology that simplifies downstream purification,” said Joseph Boothe, vice president of research and development at SemBioSys. “The target proteins are engineered to associate with small, oil-containing structures within the seed known as oilbodies,” Boothe explained. “When extracted from the seed these oilbodies and associated proteins can be separated from other components by simple centrifugation. As a result, much of the heavy lifting around the initial purification is accomplished without chromatography, providing for substantial cost savings.”The second potential advantage of PMPs is their speed to market, which could prove most significant for the production of vaccines, either against emerging diseases or seasonal influenza, for which immunological changes in the virus mean that newly formulated vaccines are required each year. “In terms of a vaccine, I think influenza is very promising particularly as speed is of the essence in combating new strains,” Lomonossoff said. “Using transient expression methods, you can go from sequence to expressed protein in two weeks.” Transient gene expression involves injection of genes into a cell to produce a target protein, rather than permanently incorporating the gene into a host genome. This is emerging as a less technically difficult and faster alternative to developing stable cell lines for expressing bioengineered proteins. The process of injecting the desired gene into the target genome, known as transfection, can be effected not only by viruses, but also by non-viral agents including various lipids, polyethylenine and calcium phosphate.The last of the three advantages of plants for pharmaceutical production—the ability to manufacture proteins not available by other means—is creating perhaps the greatest excitement. The Protalix taliglucerase alpha protein falls into this category, and is likely to be followed by other candidates for treating disorders that require enzymes or complex molecules beyond the scope of bacteria, according to Aviezer. “I would say that for simpler proteins, bacteria will still be the method of choice for a while,” Aviezer said. “But for more complex proteins currently made via mammalian cells, I think we can offer a very attractive alternative using plant cells.”Indeed, plants can in principle be engineered to produce any protein, including animal ones, as Boothe pointed out. “In some cases this may require additional genetic engineering to enable the plant to perform certain types of protein modification that differ between plants and animals,” he said. “The classic example of this is glycosylation. With recent advances in the field it is now possible to engineer plants to glycosylate proteins in a manner similar to that of mammalian cells.” Glycosylation is a site-directed process that adds mono- or polysaccharides to organic molecules, and plays a vital role in folding and conferring stability on the finished molecule or macromolecule. Although plants can be engineered to perform it, bacteria generally cannot, which is a major advantage of plant systems over micro-organisms for pharmaceutical manufacture, according to Aviezer. “This enables plant systems to do complex folding and so make proteins for enzyme replacement or antibodies,” Aviezer said.Genomic-assisted breeding is being used either as a substitute for, or a complement to, genetic-modification techniques…In addition to plants themselves, their viruses also have therapeutic potential, either to display epitopes—the protein, sugar or lipid components of antigens on the surface of an infectious agent—so as to trigger an immune response or, alternatively, to deliver a drug directly into a cell. However, as Lomonossoff pointed out, regulatory authorities remain reluctant to approve any compound containing foreign nucleic acids for human use because of the risk of infection as a side effect. “I hope the empty particle technology [viruses without DNA] we have recently developed will revive this aspect,” Lomonossoff said. “The empty particles can also be used as nano-containers for targeted drug delivery and we are actively exploring this.”As pharmaceutical production is emerging as a new field for plant biology, there is a small revolution going on in plant breeding, with the emergence of genomic techniques that allow simultaneous selection across several traits. Although genetic modification can, by importing a foreign gene, provide instant expression of a desired trait, such as drought tolerance, protein content or pesticide resistance, the new field of genomics-assisted breeding has just as great potential through selection of unique variants within the existing gene pool of a plant, according to Douwe de Boer, managing director of the Netherlands biotech group Genetwister. “With this technology it will be possible to breed faster and more efficiently, especially for complex traits that involve multiple genes,” he said. “By using markers it is possible to combine many different traits in one cultivar, variety, or line in a pre-planned manner and as such breed superior crops.”“The application of genomics technologies and next generation sequencing will surely revolutionize plant breeding and will eventually allow this to be achieved with clinical precision”Genomic-assisted breeding is being used either as a substitute for, or a complement to, genetic-modification techniques, both for food crops to bolt on traits such as nutrient value or drought resistance, and for pharmaceutical products, for example to increase the yield of a desired compound or reduce unwanted side effects. Yet, there is more research required to make genomic-assisted breeding as widely used as established genetic-modification techniques. “The challenge in our research is to find markers for each trait and as such we extensively make use of bio-informatics for data storage, analysis and visualization,” de Boer said.The rewards are potentially enormous, according to Alisdair Fernie, a group leader from the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, Germany. “Smart breeding will certainly have a massive impact in the future,” Fernie said. “The application of genomics technologies and next generation sequencing will surely revolutionize plant breeding and will eventually allow this to be achieved with clinical precision.” The promise of such genomic technologies in plants extends beyond food and pharmaceuticals to energy and new materials or products such as lubricants; the potential of plants is that they are not just able to produce the desired compound, but can often do so more quickly, efficiently and cheaply than competing biotechnological methods.     

Plants as sources of natural and recombinant anti-cancer agents

Herbal remedies were the first medicines used by humans due to the many pharmacologically active secondary metabolites produced by plants. Some of these metabolites inhibit cell division and can therefore be used for the treatment of cancer, e.g. the mitostatic drug paclitaxel (Taxol). The ability of plants to produce medicines targeting cancer has expanded due to the advent of genetic engineering, particularly in recent years because of the development of gene editing systems such as the CRISPR/Cas9 platform. These technologies allow the introduction of genetic modifications that facilitate the accumulation of native pharmaceutically-active substances, and even the production heterologous recombinant proteins, including human antibodies, lectins and vaccine candidates. Here we discuss the anti-cancer agents that are produced by plants naturally or following genetic modification, and the potential of these products to supply modern healthcare systems. Special emphasis will be put on proteinaceous anti-cancer agents, which can exhibit an improved selectivity and reduced side effects compared to small molecule-based drugs.     

Soybeans as bioreactors for biopharmaceuticals and industrial proteins

Plants present various advantages for the production of biomolecules, including low risk of contamination with prions, viruses and other pathogens, scalability, low production costs, and available agronomical systems. Plants are also versatile vehicles for the production of recombinant molecules because they allow protein expression in various organs, such as tubers and seeds, which naturally accumulate large amounts of protein. Among crop plants, soybean is an excellent protein producer. Soybean plants are also a good source of abundant and cheap biomass and can be cultivated under controlled greenhouse conditions. Under containment, the plant cycle can be manipulated and the final seed yield can be maximized for large-scale protein production within a small and controlled area. Exploitation of specific regulatory sequences capable of directing and accumulating recombinant proteins in protein storage vacuoles in soybean seeds, associated with recently developed biological research tools and purification systems, has great potential to accelerate preliminary characterization of plant-derived biopharmaceuticals and industrial macromolecules. This is an important step in the development of genetically engineered products that are inexpensive and safe for medicinal, food and other uses.     

Genetic contributions to agricultural sustainability

The current tools of enquiry into the structure and operation of the plant genome have provided us with an understanding of plant development and function far beyond the state of knowledge that we had previously. We know about key genetic controls repressing or stimulating the cascades of gene expression that move a plant through stages in its life cycle, facilitating the morphogenesis of vegetative and reproductive tissues and organs. The new technologies are enabling the identification of key gene activity responses to the range of biotic and abiotic challenges experienced by plants. In the past, plant breeders produced new varieties with changes in the phases of development, modifications of plant architecture and improved levels of tolerance and resistance to environmental and biotic challenges by identifying the required phenotypes in a few plants among the large numbers of plants in a breeding population. Now our increased knowledge and powerful gene sequence-based diagnostics provide plant breeders with more precise selection objectives and assays to operate in rationally planned crop improvement programmes. We can expect yield potential to increase and harvested product quality portfolios to better fit an increasing diversity of market requirements. The new genetics will connect agriculture to sectors beyond the food, feed and fibre industries; agri-business will contribute to public health and will provide high-value products to the pharmaceutical industry as well as to industries previously based on petroleum feedstocks and chemical modification processes.