Synthesis of Recombinant Human Cytokine GM-CSF in the Seeds of Transgenic Tobacco Plants

We are interested in studying plant systems as vehicles for the production of recombinant proteins of clinical relevance. There are a number of potential advantages to producing recombinant protein products in plants. Plants are more economical compared to fermentation or cell-culture facilities and their production scale can be easily increased. They offer the potential for very high levels of heterologous protein production and because many plant tissues are generally recognized as safe, the probability of health risks because of contamination with potential human pathogens and toxins in recombinant products derived from plants is minimized. Furthermore, plants have glycosylation machinery like other eukaryotic systems (1 ).