The dominant technology used for the production of transgenic plants for transient expression is Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation, or "agroinfiltration," and virus expression machinery. Agrobacterium tumefaciens and related Agrobacterium species are well-known plant pathogens that have been engineered to efficiently transfer specific pieces of DNA (called transfer DNA, or T-DNA) into the plant nucleus using binary vector systems, which consists of a T-DNA binary vector and a vir helper plasmid. This binary vector separates T-DNA from trans-acting virulence proteins that help mediate the transfer. Advantages of this method include modularity of broad host-range plasmids of small size through standard molecular biology techniques. Furthermore, since the parent tumor-inducing plasmid in Agrobacterium strains have been disarmed and only non-reproductive cells have been modified (as opposed to germ-line modifications), the process is considered environmentally harmless.
Applications of this process has resulted in advancements made in the use of plants to synthetic biology. Plant-derived bioproducts show promise of high competitiveness towards traditional mammalian cell expression systems.