title: From Neanderthal to nanobiotech: from plant potions to pharming with plant factories.
abstract: Plants were the main source for human drugs until the beginning of the nineteenth century when plant-derived pharmaceuticals were partly supplanted by drugs produced by the industrial methods of chemical synthesis. During the last decades of the twentieth century, genetic engineering has offered an alternative to chemical synthesis, using bacteria, yeasts and animal cells as factories for the production of therapeutic proteins. After a temporary decrease in interest, plants are rapidly moving back into human pharmacopoeia, with the recent development of plant-based recombinant protein production systems offering a safe and extremely cost-effective alternative to microbial and mammalian cell cultures. In this short review, we will illustrate that current improvements in plant expression systems are making them suitable as alternative factories for the production of either simple or highly complex therapeutic proteins.
authors.affiliation: Faculté des Sciences, Université de Rouen, Mont Saint, Aignan, France.
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sourrouille
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Marshall
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liénard
authors.forename: Loïc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Faye
mesh_terms: D001709:Biotechnology; D036103:Nanotechnology; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000378:metabolism; D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified / Q000378:metabolism*; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis
chemical_list: D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations; D011994:Recombinant Proteins