INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION OF BIOACTIVE PLANT COMPOUNDS AND METABOLIC ENGINEERING

Many higher plants are rich sources of natural products. Secondary metabolites compounds are produced exclusive of the primary (nutrition and maintenance) metabolites essential to support the life of an organism. Production of these metabolites from plants is not always adequate. It is often confined to a limited species or genus, and geographically to a particular area. Many important medicinal plants were endangered by overexploitation and or their natural habitats, difficult to cultivate and grow very slowly. The request of using natural products for medicinal purposes is enhancing, and metabolic engineering can alter the production of pharmaceuticals and help to plan new therapies. Plant tissue cultures, are found to have potential as a supplement to traditional agriculture in the industrial production of bioactive plant metabolites. Tissue culture, combined with improvement in genetic engineering, specifically transformation technology, has exposed new ways for high volume production of pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and other beneficial materials. Current developments in tissue culture technology reveal that transcription factors are efficient new molecular tools for plant metabolic engineering to raise the production of valuable compounds. Hairy root cultures are the recent method with many advantages for to produce several groups of secondary metabolites, as fast growth in hormone-free culture medium, high genetic stability, and a high level of secondary metabolite production cultures have revolutionized the role of plant tissue culture in secondary metabolite production. In order to obtain high yields suitable for commercial exploitation, efforts have focused on isolating the biosynthetic active compounds through transgenic hairy root.

Keywords:

Medicinal plants , Secondary metabolites , Molecular tools , Commercial exploitation