An overview on transgenic plants as biopharmaceutical factories

Plants are readily converted and offer a cheap supply of protein, they have a lot of promise for producing biopharmaceutical proteins and peptides. Plant expression systems are now being developed, field tested, and patented by many biotechnology firms, and clinical studies on the first biopharmaceuticals generated from them are underway. For the first time, hirudin, a transgenic plant-derived biopharmaceutical, is being commercially manufactured in Canada. Purification of a product may be costly, and different techniques are being developed to address this issue, including oleosin-fusion technology, which enables extraction with oil bodies. In certain instances, direct ingestion of a biopharmaceutical product from a transgenic plant may eliminate the requirement for purification. Biopharmaceuticals or edible vaccines may be stored and delivered as seeds, tubers, as well as fruits, possibly making vaccination efforts in poor nations cheaper and simpler to administer. Transgenic plants may make some of the most costly biopharmaceuticals with limited supply, such as glucoce rebrosidase, considerably cheaper and more abundant.