Research & Development

Application and challenges of Molecular Farming

Advances in plant synthetic biology promise to introduce novel agricultural products in the near future. Molecular Farming is one of them and which includes engineered crops to produce medications, vaccines, biofuels, industrial enzymes, and other high-value compounds. These crops have the potential to reduce costs to provide new economic opportunities to farmers. On the other hand, some applications of molecular farming may pose risks to human health and the environment also. For example, unwanted gene flow from genetically engineered crops could potentially contaminate the food supply, and affect wildlife. Engineered plants' potential as low-input production platforms for large-scale pharmaceutical manufacture is now being investigated. Human insulin, human serum albumin (HSA), and HIV-neutralizing antibodies are examples of plant-made pharmaceuticals (PMPs) with worldwide markets. Human insulin is in great demand because to the global prevalence of diabetes, which includes a significant undersupplied market in Asia. Plant-based insulin synthesis might fill the gap at a cost that diabetics in this region could pay (Stoger et al., 2014). Molecular farming also has the potential to enhance the production of pharmaceuticals naturally produced in plants such as the anti-cancer drug Taxol (paclitaxel) and artemisinin, a crucial anti-malarial compound. Using plants to produce enzymes or other proteins has an influence on the isolated products' safety and potential activity. Industrial chemicals can also be produced in vast quantities by plants. Cellulases and amylases for bioethanol synthesis, xylanases to improve animal feed, and oxidation/reduction enzymes like laccases and peroxidases for paper manufacture are examples of plant-produced industrial compounds (PMIs) (Van Der Maarel et al., 2002; Bailey et al., 2004). Bioethanol is currently created by fermenting maize starch. Syngenta's genetically modified (GM) corn, Enogen, contains a -amylase enzyme, which catalyzes the breakdown of starch into glucose, to help with this process (Que et al., 2014). While molecular farming has the potential to lower the cost of medications and industrially useful compounds, the growth of these technologies is contingent on the containment of the transgenes. In some cases, molecular farming could potentially pose a risk of humans or animals being harmed through inadvertent exposure to an unsafe level of recombinant protein (Breyer et al., 2012). Medication and industrial enzymes might be cheaper because to molecular farming. However, there are environmental and human health dangers when the recombinant protein is potentially hazardous. The transgene's introduction into a nearby crop or weed might contaminate food or feed sources. Any contamination occurrence might threaten molecular farming's credibility. For these reasons, transgene containment must be efficient. The development of biological containment technology has made significant progress. Total sterility is practical for tuber and bulb propagated crops. However, these methods are inapplicable to many species. Some technologies have the potential to control gene flow. To assure the safety and widespread use of field-produced molecular farming crops, more research is needed in this area.
Ataur Rahman
Scientist, ASRBC.

References:
Bailey, M. R., Woodard, S. L., Callaway, E., Beifuss, K., Magallanes-Lundback, M., Lane, J. R., et al. (2004). Improved recovery of active recombinant laccase from maize seed. Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 63, 390–397. doi: 10.1007/s00253-003-1362-z
Breyer, D., De Schrijver, A., Goossens, M., Pauwels, K., and Herman, P. (2012). “Biosafety of molecular farming in genetically modified plants,” in Molecular Farming in Plants: Recent Advances and Future Prospects, eds A. Wang and S. Ma, (Dordrecht: Springer), 259–274. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-2217-0_12
Que, Q., Elumalai, S., Li, X., Zhong, H., Nalapalli, S., Schweiner, M., et al. (2014). Maize transformation technology development for commercial event generation. Front. Plant Sci. 5:379. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2014.00379
Stoger, E., Fischer, R., Moloney, M., and Ma, J. K.-C. (2014). Plant molecular pharming for the treatment of chronic and infectious diseases. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol. 65, 743–768. doi: 10.1146/annurev-arplant-050213-035850
Van Der Maarel, M. J., Van Der Veen, B., Uitdehaag, J. C. M., Leemhuis, H., and Dijkhuizen, L. (2002). Properties and applications of starch-converting enzymes of the α-amylase family. J. Biotechnol. 94, 137–155. doi: 10.1016/S0168-1656(01)00407-2