Monoclonal antibodies, both for therapeutic and diagnostic use, represent one of the most important biopharmaceutical products. Due to current and future increasing demand, there is an urgent need for alternative production platforms that can at least act as a complement to the overexploited mammalian fermentation systems. One possible alternative for the large-scale production of biopharmaceuticals is the use of plant expression systems. This technology has already proven its advantages in terms of safety, speed, potential for rapid scale-up production, lower production costs, high yields and the possibility to engineer a tailored antibody glycosylation profile, which allows us to produce even more stable and efficient antibodies. The diversity of plant systems (cell or tissue cultures, use of aquatic plants, mosses, algae, whole plants) allows adaptation to specific requirements of different platforms. Since the possibilities of use are broad I only focused on the potential use of whole plants. I described different methods of plant transformation (stable and transient expression), advantages, shortcomings, difficulties of this alternative platform, and the potential contribution of plant made antibodies to the global market. Finally, I have presented a few examples that have shown the successful use of plant-platforms on a larger scale.
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