Catharanthus roseus is the source of important anti-cancer drugs, vincristine and vinblastine, which are produced in very low yields requiring huge quantities of the whole plant and extensive chromatographic processing for their isolation. Root suspension cell cultures of C. roseus produced alkaloids when the media concentration of growth hormone 2,4-D was reduced. Several workers have reported the influence…
Shikonin was the first phytoconstituent to be commercially produced from tissue culture. It is a nathaquinone dye with anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory properties and has been used in the treatment of burns, wounds, and hemorrhoids. A valuable vegetable dye, it gives a spectrum of colours ranging from red, purple, to blue. It is obtained from Lythospermum erythrorhizon, a plant…
Plant secondary metabolites are biosynthetically derived from primary metabolites—those having an essential role in basic cell metabolism and are not essential for the survival of the individual plant cell. Though being non nutritive and not directly required for growth, they play ecologically significant role in how plants deal with their environment and are important for…
These modifications may be possible when few genes have to be manipulated. However, plant secondary metabolite biogenesis happens due to a complex and multiple cascade of metabolic reactions, controlled by multiple enzymes. It may still be a long time before we have transgenic plants acting as biochemical factories generating the needed quantity of secondary metabolites.
The bacterium having the vector with the desired gene is put in the media having the sterilized and freshly cut plant explant which may be colyledon, leaf, hypocotyl, or stem meristem. The bacteria is able to transfect the explant cells after which the medium is treated with antibiotics to phase out bacterial cells. Transformed Cell…
Understanding the process of crown gall formation through Agrobacterium tumefaciens has shown that virulent strains of this bacteria are able to introduce a part of their genome material into the plant cell. This results in not only successful integration and transformation of the plant cells, but also prompt replication of bacterial genes, along with the plant genome.…
When the plant genome is altered by artificial introduction of one or few genes responsible for a desired trait, it is referred to as genetic transformation. Such genetically altered cell, when manipulated to develop into a whole plant, due to its totipotency, results in a transgenic plant. Though not all plants are amenable to such…
Callus-derived cells sometimes fail to generate secondary metabolites and even when they do so in many cases the initial spurt in secondary metabolite production slowly declines and comes to a halt. However, on organogenesis, they continue to accumulate secondary metabolites. Since in whole plants production and storage of secondary metabolites is regulated by and associated…
Chemical change brought about by biological systems such as cells, organelles, enzymes, or cell free extracts resulting in compound conversions or de novo synthesis from added precursors is called bio transformation. Microbial biotransformations have enabled the highly cost-effective manufacture of several medicinally important steroids from plant-derived steroid precursors which are a few steps away from the desired…
Cultured plant cells in suspension usually demonstrate an inverse relationship between growth and primary or secondary metabolism. Secondary metabolite formation usually does not reach optimum levels until the growth rate of the culture decreases substantially during the stationary phase. In other words, secondary metabolite generation could be maintained for extended periods if stationary phase cells…