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Engineering Chloroplasts for High-Level Foreign Protein Expression

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Chloroplast Biotechnology

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 1132))

Abstract

Expression of transgenes from the plastid genome offers a number of attractions to biotechnologists, with the potential to attain very high protein accumulation levels arguably being the most attractive one. High-level transgene expression is of particular importance in resistance engineering (e.g., via expression of insecticidal proteins) and molecular farming. Over the past years, the production of many commercially valuable proteins in chloroplast-transgenic (transplastomic) plants has been attempted, including pharmaceutical proteins (such as subunit vaccines and protein antibiotics) and industrial enzymes. Although, in some cases, spectacularly high foreign protein accumulation levels have been obtained, expression levels were disappointingly poor in other cases. In this review, I summarize our current knowledge about the factors influencing the efficiency of plastid transgene expression and highlight possible optimization strategies to alleviate problems with poor expression levels.

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Acknowledgements

Work on plastid transformation in the author’s laboratory is supported by grants from the European Union (FP7), the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), and the Max Planck Society.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institut für Molekulare Pflanzenphysiologie, Potsdam-Golm, Germany

    Ralph Bock

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  1. Ralph Bock
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  1. Rutgers University, Waksman Inst.of Microbiology, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA

    Pal Maliga

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Bock, R. (2014). Engineering Chloroplasts for High-Level Foreign Protein Expression. In: Maliga, P. (eds) Chloroplast Biotechnology. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1132. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-995-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-995-6_5

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  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-62703-994-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-62703-995-6

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