Metabolic pathway engineering by plastid transformation is a powerful tool for production of compounds in higher plants

Abstract

Plastid transformation is a powerful tool for the production of useful compounds in higher plants through metabolic engineering, because it has many advantages over conventional nuclear transformation: high-level foreign protein accumulation, no need for a transit peptide, absence of gene silencing, and convenient transgene stacking in an operon. Plastid transformation has recently yielded remarkable results in the production of highly valued biopharmaceutical proteins and in conferring herbicide and insect resistance. Metabolic pathway engineering by plastid transformation has also produced higher levels of useful compounds than nuclear transformation. Furthermore, recent reports have shown the functional regulation of transgene expression from the plastid genome. In this review, we have focused on the progress of plastid transformation in material production from the aspect of biosynthetic pathway engineering, discussing the issues for future expansion of plastid transformation.