Chloroplast genetic transformation in higher plants: an encounter between prokaryote and eukaryote = 고등식물의 엽록체 형질전환: 원핵생물과 진핵생물의 조우

Abstract

Chloroplasts are believed to be descended from certain cyanobacteria, which were taken up by phagocytosis into a host cell and lived there in a symbiotic relationship. In contrast to the current static concept on the chloroplast genome, its dynamism has been recently demonstrated: the chloroplast genome is active in intramolecular homologous recombination, producing subgenomic circles when it obtains homolgous sequences via genetic transformation. Chloroplast tranformation in higher plants provides many advantages over nuclear transformation that include higher expression levels of transgenes, polycistronic expression of transgenes, and maternal transmission of transgenes. Tobacco has been used as a model for chloroplast genetic transformation. However, it is recently possible to transform the chloroplasts of other major food and economic crops including rice, soybean, and cotton. Chloroplast-transformed crops will be able to replace bioreactors using microorganisms for production of value-added proteins in future.