Plant Serine Protease Inhibitors: Biotechnology Application in Agriculture and Molecular Farming

CLEMENTE, M.; CORIGLIANO, M.; PARIANI, S.; SANCHEZ LOPEZ, E.; SANDER, V.; RAMOS DUARTE, V.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES

MOLECULAR DIVERSITY PRESERVATION INTERNATIONAL-MDPI

Lugar: Basel; Año: 2019

1422-0067

Abstract: The serine protease inhibitors (SPIs) are widely distributed in living organisms like bacteria, fungi, plants, and humans. The main function of SPIs as protease enzymes is to regulate the proteolytic activity. In plants, most of the studies of SPIs have been focused on their physiological role. The initialstudies carried out in plants showed that SPIs participate in the regulation of endogenous proteolytic processes, as the regulation of proteases in seeds. Besides, it was observed that SPIs also participate in the regulation of cell death during plant development and senescence. On the other hand, plantSPIs have an important role in plant defense against pests and phytopathogenic microorganisms. In the last 20 years, several transgenic plants over-expressing SPIs have been produced and tested in order to achieve the increase of the resistance against pathogenic insects. Finally, in molecular farming, SPIs have been employed to minimize the proteolysis of recombinant proteins expressed inplants. The present review discusses the potential biotechnological applications of plant SPIs in the agriculture field.