ABSTRACT
To date, most synthetic biology has been done in single-celled organisms, but progression of the technology in multicellular organisms is the inevitable next step. Compared with animals, plants are easy to work with being sessile and having low requirements for healthy growth. In the past two decades, almost 100 genome-sequencing projects have
CONTENTS
6.1 Tools and Resources .......................................................................................................... 185 6.1.1 Agrobacterium as a Gene Delivery Tool ............................................................ 186 6.1.2 Virus-Based Vector Systems ................................................................................. 186
6.2 Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture .................................................................. 187 6.2.1 Challenge of Re-Engineering Photosynthesis ................................................... 188 6.2.2 Engineering Synthetic Symbioses ....................................................................... 189 6.2.3 Towards Durable Resistance ................................................................................ 190
6.3 Improving Nutritive Value ............................................................................................... 192 6.3 1 Engineering the Bioavailability of Micronutrients in Food Crops ................. 192 6.3.2 Engineering to Optimise the Fat and Fibre Content of Food Crops .............. 193
6.4 Synthetic Biology and Green Biopharms ....................................................................... 194 6.5 Fibre and Fuel ..................................................................................................................... 195 6.6 Sensing and Phytoremediation ........................................................................................ 197 6.7 Future of Plant Synthetic Biology .................................................................................... 198 References ..................................................................................................................................... 199
been initiated for plant and algal species and there is no longer a paucity of plant genetic resources. These data are being mined for coding and regulatory sequences for use in numerous ambitious genetic engineering projects with the potential to revolutionise plant biotechnology.
