It is currently possible to transfer a biosynthetic pathway from a plant to another organism. This system has been exploited to transfer the metabolic richness of certain plant species to other plants or even to more simple metabolic organisms such as yeast or bacteria for the production of high added value plant compounds. Another application is to bioconvert substrates into scarcer or biologi...

Miraculin, a taste modifier, is protein that was first isolated from miracle fruit (Richadella dulcifica). It can change sour into sweet when acids are consumed, although it does not elicit response. Miraculin may have the potential in industry as substitute for sugars and artificial sweeteners. Since plant has low productivity, mass production of miraculin limited. Transgenic hairy root cultur...

Recombinant subunit vaccines consisting of the F1 and V antigens of Yersinia pestis have shown remarkable promise for protection of animals and humans against bubonic and pneumonic plague. Previously we demonstrated that intranasal administration of a recombinant protein consisting of the ricin B chain (RTB) fused with an antigen purified from transgenic Nicotiana tabacum (tobacco) hairy root c...

The polyphagous insect-pest, Helicoverpa armigera, is a serious threat to a number of economically important crops. Chemical application and/or cultivation of Bt transgenic crops are the two strategies available now for insect-pest management. However, environmental pollution and long-term sustainability are major concerns against these two options. RNAi is now considered as a promising technol...

A genomic clone for VR-ACS6, an isozyme of auxininducible ACC synthase of mungbean, was isolated, and its promoter activity was examined in transgenic tobacco. The clone contained 1,612 bp long 5' untranscribed region and its coding sequence consisted of three exons and two introns. Genomic Southern hybridization indicated that VRACS6 is a single copy gene. The transcription initiation site was...

The modified Cry1Ac was expressed in transgenic tobacco plants. To allow secretion of the Cry1Ac protein into the intercellular space, the signal peptide sequence of potato proteinase inhibitor II (pinII) was N-terminally fused to the Cry1Ac encoding region. Expression of Cry1Ac in transgenic tobacco plants was assayed with ELISA. The results showed that pinII signal peptide sequence enhanced t...

An obligate halophyte, Salicornia brachiata grows in salt marshes and is considered to be a potential resource of salt- and drought-responsive genes. It is important to develop an understanding of the mechanisms behind enhanced salt tolerance. To increase this understanding, a novel SbSRP gene was cloned, characterized, over-expressed, and functionally validated in the model plant Nicotiana tab...

To test the feasibility of altering polyamine levels by influencing their catabolic pathway, we obtained transgenic tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) plants constitutively expressing either maize (Zea mays) polyamine oxidase (MPAO) or pea (Pisum sativum) copper amine oxidase (PCuAO), two extracellular and H(2)O(2)-producing enzymes. Despite the high expression levels of the transgenes in the extracel...

The plant Cannabis sativa contains a number of psychoactive chemical compounds, the cannabinoids, which possess a significant pharmaceutical potential. Recently, the usage of Cannabis for medicinal purposes was legalized in many countries. Thus, the study on the influence of different cannabinoids in combination with other Cannabis-derived compounds with respect to the treatment of various dise...

Novel cyanogenic plants have been generated by the simultaneous expression of the two multifunctional sorghum (Sorghum bicolor [L.] Moench) cytochrome P450 enzymes CYP79A1 and CYP71E1 in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum cv Xanthi) and Arabidopsis under the regulation of the constitutive 35S promoter. CYP79A1 and CYP71E1 catalyze the conversion of the parent amino acid tyrosine to p-hydroxymandelonitr...