Clark Michael, Maselko Maciej
Applied Biosciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia.
CSIRO Health and Biosecurity, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
Front Plant Sci. 2020 Mar 3;11:210. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2020.00210. eCollection 2020.
Advances in plant synthetic biology promise to introduce novel agricultural products in the near future. 'Molecular farms' will include crops engineered to produce medications, vaccines, biofuels, industrial enzymes, and other high value compounds. These crops have the potential to reduce costs while dramatically increasing scales of synthesis and provide new economic opportunities to farmers. Current transgenic crops may be considered safe given their long-standing use, however, some applications of molecular farming may pose risks to human health and the environment. Unwanted gene flow from engineered crops could potentially contaminate the food supply, and affect wildlife. There is also potential for unwanted gene flow into engineered crops which may alter their ability to produce compounds of interest. Here, we briefly discuss the applications of molecular farming and explore the various genetic and physical methods that can be used for transgene biocontainment. As yet, no technology can be applied to all crop species, such that a combination of approaches may be necessary. Effective biocontainment is needed to enable large scale molecular farming.
植物合成生物学的进展有望在不久的将来推出新型农产品。“分子农场”将包括经过基因工程改造以生产药物、疫苗、生物燃料、工业酶和其他高价值化合物的作物。这些作物有潜力降低成本，同时大幅提高合成规模，并为农民提供新的经济机会。鉴于长期使用，目前的转基因作物可能被认为是安全的，然而，分子农业的一些应用可能对人类健康和环境构成风险。转基因作物中不需要的基因流动可能会污染食物供应，并影响野生动物。也有可能不需要的基因流入转基因作物，这可能会改变它们生产目标化合物的能力。在这里，我们简要讨论分子农业的应用，并探索可用于转基因生物遏制的各种遗传和物理方法。到目前为止，没有一种技术可以应用于所有作物物种，因此可能需要多种方法结合使用。有效的生物遏制对于实现大规模分子农业至关重要。
