叶绿体基因工程研究进展

Progress of Studies on Chloroplast Genetic Engineering

叶绿体是植物细胞和真核藻类执行光合作用的重要细胞器,在叶绿体中表达外源基因比在细胞核中表达具有一些独特优势。叶绿体基因工程涉及叶绿体的基因组特征、转化系统的优点、转化过程及方法等方面,叶绿体基因工程在提高植物光合效率、改良植物特性、生产生物药物及改善植物代谢途径等方面已得到应用。尽管叶绿体基因工程还存在同质化难度高、标记基因转化效率较低、宿主种类偏少等问题,但作为外源基因在高等植物中表达的良好平台其仍然具有广阔的发展和应用前景。

Chloroplast is an important organelle in plant cells to carry out photosynthesis as well as in eukaryotic algae. The expression of foreign genes in chloroplasts offers some unique advantages compared with that in nucleus. In this paper, the development situation of the chloroplast genetic engineering including the characteristic of chloroplast genome, the advantages of this system, processes and methods of transformation were summarized, and meanwhile, applications of chloroplast genetic engineering for improvement of photosynthetic efficiency and plant traits, production of biopharmaceuticals, metabolic pathway engineering and so on were also discussed. In addition, the existing problems and development prospects of chloroplasts genetic engineering were proposed.