Genetic Engineering of Plant Cells

Although the utility of large-scale cultivation of plant cells) has been well recognized, plant tissue cultivation has not yet been employed industrially for the production of primary or secondary by-products except for a few test processes.10 The underutilization of plant tissue 

10 First commercial process utilizing plant cells to manufacture shikonin was developed by a Japanese firm. Mitsue Petrochemical Industries Ltd. in 1983. 

Recent developments in recombinant DNA technologies show great promise for solving this problem. Fast growing cultured cells can be selected and genetically modified to produce commercially valuable products in higher concentrations than normally produced by the cells. The potential products of recombinant DNA techniques are foreign proteins and secondary metabolites. 

The production of secondary metabolites from genetically modified plant cells can increase productivity dramatically and bring in the rapid commercialization of large-scale plant cultivation. However, genes responsible for the biosynthesis of economically important secondary metabolites have not yet been isolated. Since secondary metabolites are usually biosynthesized via the joint action of many gene products, many genes are required for each biosynthetic pathway leading to the production of secondary metabolites. 

On the other hand, genes responsible for the economically important proteins have been identified and inserted successfully into microorganisms, because proteins are immediate gene products. The technology to introduce the foreign gene into plant cells has been also developed for the agricultural applications of plant cell culture. 

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Lee, J. M. and G. An, "Industrial application and genetic engineering of plant cell cultures", Enzyme Microb. Technol. 8 (1986) 260 - 265. 

Genetic Engineering of Plants and Microbial Cells for Flavour Production. 615... 

JP 86-47046, 4-3-1986. Manufacture of alkaloids by genetically engineered Solanaceae plant cell culture (hairy roots, Atropa belladonna). Chem. Abstr. 108, 73775q. 

Another alkaloid whose production has been successfully improved by genetic engineering in plant cell culture and whole plants is benzylisoquinohne. This was done in poppy plants and cell cultures by RNAi inhibition of the berberme bridge enzyme, which resulted in the production of reticuline [61]. The same enzyme was also targeted in an approach to transfer the benzylisoquinohne alkaloid production from tyrosine in the Papaveraceae, Berberidaceae, Ranunculaceae, Magidiaceae, and other plant famUies into microorganisms [62]. Its transfer in yeast resulted in the... 

The major classes of organic compounds common to living systems are lipids pro terns nucleic acids and carbohydrates Carbohydrates are very familiar to us— we call many of them sugars They make up a substantial portion of the food we eat and provide most of the energy that keeps the human engine running Carbohy drates are structural components of the walls of plant cells and the wood of trees Genetic information is stored and transferred by way of nucleic acids specialized derivatives of carbohydrates which we 11 examine m more detail m Chapter 28... 

One of the exciting features of the direct DNA delivery system is that it does not rely on an infection. The limited host range of other vector delivery systems is therefore irrelevant, and the way is opened for genetic engineering of cereals. Cereal protoplasts are equally amenable to uptake of foreign DNA after electroporation and the system therefore has potential for use with the major crop species. However, there is at present one drawback, namely that for cereals it has not yet proved possible to grow fertile whole plants from the genetically transformed cells. 

Shimada, Y. et al.. Genetic engineering of the anthocyanin biosynthetic pathway with flavonoid-3, 5 -hydroxylase specific switching of the pathway in petunia. Plant Cell Rep., 20, 456, 2001. 

Plant cells -genetic engineering of [GENETIC ENGINEERING - PLANTS] (Vol 12)... 

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