Patent ID: 7294506
Filing Date: 2007-11-13
Classification: C07K,C12N,Y02A

Abstract:
1. A tobacco chloroplast transformation and expression vector which is capable of introducing multiple genes in a multi-gene operon into a selected tobacco plant by a single integration event, said vector comprising as operably linked components, a first flanking sequence complementary to a first sequence of a tobacco chloroplast genome, a tobacco chloroplast promoter operably linked to a multi-gene operon, a transcription termination region functional in a tobacco chloroplast, and a second flanking sequence complementary to a second sequence of said tobacco chloroplast genome, said multi-gone operon comprising a first open reading frame encoding a first protein and a second open reading frame encoding a second protein, wherein transcription of said multi-gene operon generates a polycistron encoding said fast protein and said second protein, wherein one of said proteins is a biopharmaceutical protein selected from the group consisting of insulin or human serum albumin, and wherein one of said proteins is a chaperonin, whereby integration of the vector into said chloroplast genome comprising said first sequence and said second sequence is facilitated through homologous recombination of the flanking sequences and the chloroplast genome sequences.