The use of rice seeds to produce human pharmaceuticals for oral therapy.
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is the major staple food consumed by half of the world's population. Rice seeds have gained recent attention as bioreactors for the production of human pharmaceuticals such as therapeutic proteins or peptides. Rice seed production platforms have many advantages over animal cell or microbe systems in terms of cost-effectiveness, scalability, safety, product stability and productivity. Rice seed-based human pharmaceuticals are expected to become innovative therapies as edible drugs. Therapeutic proteins can be sequestered within natural cellular compartments in rice seeds and protected from harsh gastrointestinal environments. This review presents the state-of-the-art on the construction of gene cassettes for accumulation of pharmaceutical proteins or peptides in rice seeds, the generation of transgenic rice plants, and challenges involved in the use of rice seeds to produce human pharmaceuticals.
['Wakasa|Yuhya|Y|', 'Takaiwa|Fumio|F|']
D000284:Administration, Oral D000818:Animals D052179:Antigens, Plant D019149:Bioreactors D032485:Cryptomeria D003888:Desensitization, Immunologic D006801:Humans D051379:Mice D012275:Oryza D010940:Plant Proteins D030821:Plants, Genetically Modified D011058:Pollen D011994:Recombinant Proteins D012639:Seeds D013678:Technology, Pharmaceutical D014170:Transformation, Genetic
Oryza sativa L. Pharmaceutical protein Transgenic rice Genetically modified crop Seed storage protein