According to the Red List of threatened species 44 plant species are critically endangered, 113 endangered and 87 vulnerable (IUCN, 2000). Many medicinal plants are also in trouble from over harvesting and destruction of habitat. Population growth, urbanization and the unrestricted collection of medicinal plants from the wild is resulting in an over-exploitation of natural resources. Therefore, the management of traditional medicinal plant resources has become a matter of urgency. An ever increasing demand of uniform medicinal plants based medicines warrants their mass propagation through plant tissue culture strategy. Tissue culture technology is potent and has opened extensive areas of research for biodiversity conservation. Tissue culture protocols have been developed for a wide range of medicinal plants, which includes endangered, rare and threatened plant species. Some of these medicinal plants are Saussaurea

Objective: Rich endowment of traditional knowledge plays a critical role in health care, food security, culture, environment and development. Traditional knowledge is also widely used by the aromatic, flavoring, food and health industries. Plant-based traditional medicine has often been used to identify and fast-track the development of modern food and drugs. Plants synthesize such wide array of secondary metabolites that includes alkaloids, glucosinolates, terpenoids and phenylpropanoids. This study is aimed to review on indigenous and exotic medicinal plants containing an astounding food flavoring metabolite; 2-hydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde (HMB). Material and Method:The review focuses on the isomer of vanillin, 2-hydroxy-4-methoxybenzaldehyde, also called MBALD, HMB, or 2H4MB, a flavor compound that is generally found in the roots and rhizomes of medicinal plants. This food flavoring phenylpropenoid is one of the least investigated isomers of vanillin. HMB is known to exhibit a wide array of medicinal properties. Though the molecular role of these metabolites remains largely unknown, they are known to play a key role in plant-environment interactions/stress response/defence signaling and application in pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries. Discussion and Conclusion:One of the key secondary metabolites is the group of phenylproponoids synthesized either through shikimic acid pathway or the malonate/acetate pathway. Phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) is the enzyme involved in phenylpropanoid pathway catalysing the deamination of phenylalanine to synthesize cinnamic acid that subsequently synthesizes variety of phenylpropanoid products. Inspite of its medicinal importance, the regulatory molecular mechanism underlying the biosynthetic pathway is largely unknown.

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