Plastid Transformation – A Greener and Cleaner Technique for Overexpression of Proteins

Over the years, the need for greener technologies has revolutionized plant transformation methods. Plastid transformation is an emerging ‘green’ technique which helps in enhanced production of recombinant proteins and presents a number of advantages over nuclear transformation which includes, legitimate recombination, no gene silencing, uniform gene expression, avoids transgenic pollution as it is maternally inherited and overexpresses protein. Progress has been made through plastid transformation in enhancing plants agronomic traits to improve yield, increase their nutritive value and induce tolerance against abiotic and biotic stress. It also shows potential in the production of biopharmaceuticals, enzymes, biofuels and auto-luminescent plants. In this review, the recent achievements in chloroplast transformation have been studied and elucidated.