Potential Plant Bioreactors

Plant bioreactors are attractive expression systems for economic production of recombinant proteins. Recombinant proteins play a major role in the development of biologically derived drugs, in food and chemical industries and as high-quality proteins for research, diagnostic, and applications. Various plant expression systems or platforms have been tested successfully over the past years. Plant production expression systems include suspension cells, hairy roots, novel plants grown in contained area, microalgae, aquatic plants such as moss, and whole plants with both stable and transient expression. However, further development and modifications are needed for more effective plant bioreactors enabling the broader application of production platforms. In this review, we have first summarized the recent progress in various plant bioreactor expression systems and then focused on discussing various strategies for developing better plant bioreactors. This chapter gives an overview of the current state and provides examples of plant-based expression systems for production of different types of recombinant proteins. We have also addressed the bottlenecks for the adoption of each platform, their strengths, and strategies to enhance the potential of commercial utilization of plants to produce valuable proteins.