Factor | Transgenic plants | Plant cell cultures | Bacteria | Yeast | Mammalian cell culture | Transgenic animals | |
Costs | Production costs | Low | Medium | Low | Medium | High | Medium |
Time/effort | High | Medium | Low | Medium | High | High | |
Scale-up costs | Low | High (a) | High (a) | High (a) | High (a) | Medium (a) | |
Propagation | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy | Limited | Medium | |
Prodcutivity | High | Medium | mediium | Medium | Medium | High | |
Quality | Product quality and homogeneity | High | High | Low | Medium | High | High |
Contamination risk | No | No | Yes (b) | no | Yes (c) | Yes (c) | |
Practical Application | Data monitoring | Difficult | Easy | Easy | Easy | Easy | Difficult |
Ethical concerns | Medium | Low | Low | Low | Medium | High | |
Storage | Cheap/RT | Cheap/-20°C | Cheap/-20°C | Cheap/-20°C | Expensive/N 2 | Expensive/N 2 | |
a expensive media, expensive facilities for cultivation and livestock husbandry |
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b endotoxins | |||||||
c residual viral sequences and oncogenes | |||||||
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This web page was produced as an assignment for an undergraduate course at Davidson College.
©Copyright 2004 Department of Biology, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035
Send comments, questions, and suggestions to William Wood at wiwoo(at)davidson.edu