The production of active pharmaceutical ingredients in plants is slowly progressing. »Green bioreactors« offer several advantages over other existing production systems: the synthesis of desired molecules is faster, cheaper, more adaptive, and eliminates the risk of infection with animal pathogens. The first experiments with plant tissue cultures were mainly based on tobacco cells, therefore Nicotiana tabacum was also the first plant to be successfully regenerated in vitro. Today, tobacco remains the main plant model for the production of many different recombinant proteins. Plant molecular farming is a relatively new technology that has come to use in order to obtain more affordable and more widely available medicine. The latter is especially important when it comes to providing medicine for developing countries. The production of recombinant proteins in plants is carried out by successfully changing the genome of the transformant’s nucleus or plastid; the expression of the desired protein can be stable or transient. Transient expression allows for an extremely fast production of the required protein, which can play a crucial role in the event of a sudden epidemic outbreak. Continuous improvement and constant development of new plant transformation methods have made the production of many important recombinant proteins, antibodies, and other molecules in tobacco possible.
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