Transgenic Plants Advances and Limitations

The advances in transgenic techniques, genome editing systems, and functional genomics tools for identification and utility of signaling molecules for improvement in plant drought and saline tolerance as well as for directly manipulating key C and N transporters to improve crop yields and nutritional quality are reviewed. The use of plant insecticidal lectins and secreted peptides with antimicrobial activities as biotechnological tools for pest and pathogens control and crop protection in order to increase crop yields by minimizing quantity and quality losses is also described. Plants have been successfully used to produce recombinant cytokines, vaccines, antibodies, and other protein. Examples of plant-based vaccines for therapy of animal and even human viral diseases including the recent use of ZMapp for Ebolavirus infection are provided. There are important issues that have to be addressed in the future to overcome challenges in plant glycosylation engineering to produce active recombinant proteins. Several methods of improving protein yield and quality are proposed. This book also encompasses current progress in successful genetic manipulations of color in pot plants and cut-flower species, in development of transgenic plants as terrestrial sources of omega-3 fish oils, in development of genetically encoded plant pH-sensors, which can be used to measure pH in the microenvironment of living tissues. Finally, this book provides insight into the recent progress in genomics and metabolomics studies on transgenic crops focusing on the occurrence of unintended changes resulting from genetic manipulations as well as the pre-market biosafety assessments of genetically engineered plants and food and feeds derived from genetically engineered plants.