title: Plant Molecular Farming: Much More than Medicines.
abstract: Plants have emerged as commercially relevant production systems for pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical products. Currently, the commercially available nonpharmaceutical products outnumber the medical products of plant molecular farming, reflecting the shorter development times and lower regulatory burden of the former. Nonpharmaceutical products benefit more from the low costs and greater scalability of plant production systems without incurring the high costs associated with downstream processing and purification of pharmaceuticals. In this review, we explore the areas where plant-based manufacturing can make the greatest impact, focusing on commercialized products such as antibodies, enzymes, and growth factors that are used as research-grade or diagnostic reagents, cosmetic ingredients, and biosensors or biocatalysts. An outlook is provided on high-volume, low-margin proteins such as industrial enzymes that can be applied as crude extracts or unprocessed plant tissues in the feed, biofuel, and papermaking industries.
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, 1190 Vienna, Austria; email: eva.stoeger@boku.ac.at.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tschofen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Hydrochemistry, Chair for Analytical Chemistry, Technische Universität München, 80333 Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Dietmar
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Knopp
authors.affiliation: Arkansas State University Biosciences Institute, Jonesboro, Arkansas 72467.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hood
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, 1190 Vienna, Austria; email: eva.stoeger@boku.ac.at.
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Stöger
mesh_terms: D000906:Antibodies / Q000378:metabolism; D001688:Biological Products / Q000378:metabolism*; D004798:Enzymes / Q000096:biosynthesis; D036341:Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis; D058634:Molecular Farming; D010944:Plants / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D000906:Antibodies; D001688:Biological Products; D004798:Enzymes; D036341:Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins
keywords: biofuel; papermaking; plant biotechnology; plant-made proteins; recombinant protein; technical enzymes