| Agronomic importance |
Except for insect, herbicide and salt tolerance engineered in soybean and carrot, all others traits should be engineered in useful crops. Nitrogen fixation should be first demonstrated in a suitable model plant |
| Insect resistance |
| Herbicide resistance |
| Disease resistance |
| Drought and salt tolerance |
| Cold tolerance |
| Nitrogen fixation |
| Metabolic pathways |
Metabolic engineering has been demonstrated in tomato; should be advanced in major crops |
| Provitamin A |
| Engineering vitamin B12 |
| Synthesis of long-chain PUFAs |
| Biopharmaceuticals and vaccines for human health |
Tobacco is not a suitable system for oral delivery, a major advantage of plant molecular farming. To date, only a few vaccine antigens have been expressed in lettuce chloroplasts. More efforts should be made to express biopharmaceuticals and vaccine antigens in useful crops suitable for oral delivery. Antigen expression in tomato fruit should be improved |
| Human growth hormones |
| Human growth factors |
| Human blood proteins |
| Vaccines for animal health |
Tobacco is not suitable for animal feed. More efforts should be made to develop animal vaccines in crops or edible algae which can be used as animal feed |
| Bacterial antigens |
| Viral antigens |
| Phyto-remediation |
Only phyto-remediation to clean up mercury in soil has been demonstrated so far. Many other toxic metals and persistent organic pollutants should be addressed. Phyto-remediation systems should be developed to clean up water |
| Heavy metals |
| Organomercury compounds |
| Biofuels and industrial enzymes |
Cocktails for two biomasses (pine wood, citrus peel) were developed; more work is needed for developing new enzymes for several other biomasses. In addition, valuable compounds and secondary metabolites could be engineered |
| Cell wall degrading enzymes |
| Biopolymers |
| Compounds for cosmetic application |
| Photosynthesis |
Photosynthetic efficiency in major crops could be improved to enhance food production. Performance of Rubisco under elevated atmospheric CO2 and abiotic stresses could be addressed |
| Rubisco |
| C3 and C4 plants |
