Sugarcane: An Efficient Platform for Molecular Farming

Abstract

Production of recombinant proteins in plants is referred to as molecular farming. Plant-based production of pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical products is gaining momentum around the world. Many plant species have become a promising alternative over the traditional expression systems to produce a variety of valuable or high-value bioltableogical molecules of pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical products. Plants are preferred as a platform for production of recombinant proteins because of the low costs and greater scalability of plant production systems without incurring the high costs associated with downstream processing and purification. Of the plant systems, sugarcane represents an ideal candidate for biofactory applications due to its large biomass, rapid growth rate, efficient carbon fixation pathway, a well-developed storage tissue system, minimal transgene dispersal due to vegetative method of propagation, high quantity of extractable juice with very low protein content (0.01–0.02%), and a well-established downstream processing technology. The unique aspect of sugarcane is the extraction of large juice volume (700 mL) by crushing 1 kg of cane. Therefore, sugarcane is possibly an efficient platform for molecular farming.