ABSTRACT
Antibodies play an essential role in the animal immune system where their primary function is to bind antigens in a highly specific manner allowing engagement of other components of the immune system. The binding function of antibodies is commonly exploited in a wide variety of applications, including therapy, diagnosis, analysis and affinity separations. Recently, a number of host organisms, including plants, that do not naturally produce antibodies are being developed for antibody production. Plants have been shown to be able to produce a range of recombinant antibodies (‘plantibodies’) from small antigen-binding antibody fragments to large, multimeric antibody complexes. These developments offer the potential for large-scale antibody production in crop plants. Furthermore, transgenic edible plants may provide a convenient means for both the production and delivery of antibodies that are to be used in topical therapy within the mouth or the gut. The specificity of antibodies is increasingly being exploited in a number of in situ applications in plants, where the recombinant antibodies exert their effects in the cells that produce them. Using this approach it has been established that novel forms of plant disease resistance and new types of mutants can be created.
