Time: 1:50 PM
Tobacco chloroplast genome was engineered first to confer herbicide, insect or disease resistance, drought or salt tolerance or phytoremediation. More recently, chloroplast genomes of major crops including cotton, wheat and soybean, vegetables, tubers, fruits and trees have been transformed. Significant advances have been made in expressing vaccine antigens against human bacterial, viral and protozoan pathogens in chloroplasts and animal studies demonstrated their efficacy against pathogen or toxin challenge. Most importantly, oral delivery of vaccine antigens bioencapsulated in plant cells was shown to be more efficacious than injectable vaccines or in developing oral tolerance against autoimmune disorders (diabetes, hemophilia). In the past few years, chloroplast genomes of >30 crops have been fully sequenced to further advance this technology. Chloroplast genome was modified to express industrial enzymes for biofuel production. One of these enzymes, B-glucosidase, released active hormones from their inactive conjugates stored within chloroplasts and almost doubled plant biomass. Recent advances in this field will be presented.