Biotechnological approaches for producing therapeutic peptides in plants

Abstract Plant-based platforms offer a sustainable alternative to chemical synthesis for producing high-value biological products, including therapeutic proteins and peptides, vaccines, antibodies, nutraceuticals, and specialised metabolites. Peptide-based therapeutics in particular hold enormous potential due to their specificity, safety, and efficacy in treating a wide range of diseases. Peptides that are comprised of the 20 canonical amino acids can be produced in plants, but challenges such as toxicity to host cells, aggregation, misfolding, susceptibility to proteolytic degradation, low expression levels, and challenges in dealing with post-translational modifications can limit successful biosynthesis. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of current successes and limitations in the field, and potential biotechnological strategies and exogenous treatments to overcome limitations, to enhance peptide production in plants.