Books in the SpringerBriefs in Plant Science series

Molecular farming is a biotechnological approach that includes the genetic adjustment of agricultural products to create proteins and chemicals for profitable and pharmaceutical purposes. Plant molecular farming describes the manufacture of recombinant proteins and other biologically active product in plants. This approach depends on a genetic transformation of plants that can be accomplished by the methods of stable gene transfer, such as gene transfer to nuclei and chloroplasts, and unstable transfer methods like viral vectors. The requirement for recombinant proteins in terms of quality, quantity, and diversity is increasing exponentially This demand is traditionally met by recombinant protein construction technologies and the engineering of orthodox expression systems based on bacteria or mammalian cell cultures. However, majority of developing countries cannot afford the high costs of medicine derived from such existing methods. Hence, we need to produce not only the new drugs but also the cheaper versions of those already present in the market. Plant molecular farming is considered as a cost-effective technology that has grown and advanced tremendously over the past two decades.This book summarizes the advances and challenges of plant molecular farming for all those who are working on or have an interest in this rapidly emerging area of research.

This book focuses on the significance and implications of Calcium (Ca2+) transport machinery in the plant cell in generating alternating Ca2+ levels and impacting the cell's physiological, biochemical and developmental processes.

While existing literature does exist on this medicinal plant, it can be cumbersome to sort through for information relevant to academics, research, and practice. This work reframes and consolidates information on Adhatoda vasica so that it is easier to approach through academic, research, and practitioner perspectives.

Overall performance of the plant, and operation of metabolic machinery depends upon intracellular K+ homeostasis (K+ uptake and efflux) via K+ channels and transporters acting as mediators of cellular responses during plant development.

In traditional medicine licorice roots have been used against treating many ailments including lung diseases, arthritis, kidney diseases, eczema, heart diseases, gastric ulcer, low blood pressure, allergies, liver toxicity, and certain microbial infections.

At the end of the 1960s the senior author initiated a study on the chickpea's wild relatives followed by similar attempts for broad bean, fenugreek, common vetch, bitter vetch, and lentil.

Designed for new scholars, this book features a quick and easy-to-read discussion of ethnobotany along with its major developments. While there are some books on ethnobotany, mainly dealing with methods, this book covers the topic in an introductory and comprehensive text that prepares the reader for more advanced study of ethnobotany.

This is possible by growing allelopathic crop cultivars, using mulches from allelopathic crops, intercropping an allelopathic crop with a non-allelopathic crop, including allelopathic crops in crop rotation, or using allelopathic crops as cover crops.

This book is a systematized overview of wild edible plants eaten in the territory of present Estonia, with a focus on the systematic changes within the field. More details on specific food-uses are provided in separate chapters analysing dynamics of changes of the importance of wild plants within the specific food category.

Stalking the Wild Sweetgrass: Domestication and Horticulture of the Grass Used in African-American Coiled Basketry is concerned with the historical domestication of sweetgrass, the main construction/structural grass used in the three century old African-American tradition of coiled basketry in South Carolina.

Molecular marker strategies will be of help in understanding some aspects of sucrose metabolism and its regulation in this crop, thus complementing the ongoing crop improvement programmes.

Global climate change is expected to produce increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, higher temperatures, aberrant precipitation patterns and a host of other climatic changes that would affect all life on this planet.