Secondary metabolism of pharmaceuticals in the plant in vitro cultures: strategies, approaches, and limitations to achieving higher yield

• Published in: Plant cell, tissue and organ culture Vol. 132; no. 2; pp. 239 - 265
• Main Authors: Isah, Tasiu, Umar, Shahid, Mujib, Abdul, Sharma, Maheshwar Prasad, Rajasekharan, P. E., Zafar, Nadia, Frukh, Arajmand
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01-02-2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Alkaloids; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biotechnology; Cell culture; Culture techniques; Endophytes; Environmental conditions; Flavonoids; Industrial production; Life Sciences; Medicinal plants; Metabolic engineering; Metabolism; Metabolites; Organ culture; Pharmaceutical industry; Pharmaceuticals; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Plant Pathology; Plant Physiology; Plant Sciences; Plants (botany); Propagation; Review; Secondary metabolites; Steroid hormones; Steroids; Terpenes; Tissue culture; Medicinal plants; Elicitation; Natural products; Bioactive compounds; Plant secondary metabolism; Pharmaceuticals
• ISSN: 0167-6857; 1573-5044
• DOI: 10.1007/s11240-017-1332-2

Biotechnology is playing a vital alternative role in the production of pharmaceutical plant secondary metabolites to support industrial production and mitigate over-exploitation of natural sources. High-value pharmaceuticals that include alkaloids, flavonoids, terpenes, steroids, among others, are biosynthesized as a defensive strategy by plants in response to perturbations under natural environmental conditions. However, they can also be produced using plant cell, tissue, and organ culture techniques through the application of various in vitro approaches and strategies. In the past decades, efforts were on the clonal propagation, biomass and secondary metabolites production in the in vitro cultures of medicinally important plants that produce these molecules. In recent years, the effort has shifted towards optimizing culture conditions for their production through the application of cell line selection, elicitation, precursor feeding, two-phase co-culture among cell, tissue, and organ culture approaches. The efforts are made with the possibility to scale-up the production, meet pharmaceutical industry demand and conserve natural sources of the molecules. Applications of metabolic engineering and production from endophytes are also getting increasing attention but, the approaches are far from practical application in their industrial production.