Ingénierie enzymatique
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New Challenges and Opportunities of Protein Engineering in Plants

Rafael A. Cañas

The present increase of the human population provokes higher demands for food, combustible and raw materials that may cause short-medium term famine and scarcity. The use of enzyme engineering techniques in plants could contribute to palliate these global problems. Enzyme engineering is changing the chemical and pharmaceutical industries and opens new possibilities, although until now the use of these techniques in plants is very limited. The new techniques employed in Plant Sciences, such as transformation of herbaceous crops and trees, the increasing number of full sequenced plant genomes, and the chemical diversity of plants can support a rapid development of enzyme engineering in plants. In the future, the application of enzyme engineering techniques could increase the crop yield or facilitate the biofuel production.