Breeding medicinal plant, periwinkle [Catharanthus roseus(L) G. Don]: a review

Abstract

Periwinkle [Catharanthus roseus (L) G. Don] has become one of the very extensively investigated medicinal plants after the discovery of two powerful anti-cancer alkaloids, vinblastine and vincristine, in its leaves more than 50 years ago. These alkaloidal drugs are still in clinical use. Also, periwinkle is still the only source of these alkaloids and their precursors, catharanthine and vindoline. Low concentrations of these alkaloids in the plant and, therefore, high costs of their extraction have led to tremendous efforts towards understanding their biosynthesis and exploration of alternate ways of their production such as, chemical synthesis, cell, tissue and hairy root cultures, and metabolic engineering of heterologous organisms. Literature on this plant is quite voluminous, with an average of about 80 publications per year during last three decades (1985–2015). Nearly 60% of these publications are on physiology, biochemistry, cell and tissue culture, phytochemistry, metabolic and genetic engineering aspects. In spite of these efforts, an economically viable alternative to field-grown periwinkle plants as a source of these alkaloids has not yet been found. Biosynthesis of C. roseus alkaloids is a complex process involving many genes, enzymes, regulators, inter- and intra-cellular transporters, cell types, organelles and tissues and its current understanding is still considered to be incomplete to produce C. roseus alkaloids through metabolic engineering/synthetic biology. Till such time, breeding periwinkle varieties with higher concentrations of anti-cancer alkaloids for cultivation can be an alternate approach to meet the demand for these alkaloids and reduce their costs. While literature on cell and tissue culture, phytochemistry, metabolic and genetic engineering aspects of periwinkle has been reviewed periodically, crop production and plant breeding aspects have received little attention. In this paper, an attempt has been made to bring together published information on genetics and breeding of periwinkle as a medicinal plant. Some probable constraints which may have hindered taking up periwinkle breeding are identified. Initially, quite a few attempts have been made at genetic improvement of periwinkle through induced polyploidy, and subsequently through induced mutagenesis. Mutations, both natural and induced, provide a valuable resource for use in breeding and in functional and reverse genomics research. It is only during last 6–7 years, genetic diversity has been assessed using molecular markers and very recently molecular markers have been identified for marker-assisted selection for alkaloid yield.

Orcein and Fluorescent Banding Analysis of Two Floral Types of Catharanthus Roseus L.

“…2). Similar diploid chromosome numbers were reported earlier which correlates to the present study (7,8,(20)(21)(22)(23) . The consistency in the number of diploid chromosome complement indicated that this species is stable.…”

“…Moreover, a few abnormal cells with 2n = 12 and 14 chromosomes were also reported for this species, which did not correlate with the present findings (24) . Some previous workers reported the 16 chromosomes of pink and white flower types with the different centromeric positions (21,22) . However, in the present study, 16 metacentric chromosomes were found in both pink and white flower type of C. roseus (Fig.…”

Potential of Genomic Selection in Mass Selection Breeding of an Allogamous Crop: An Empirical Study to Increase Yield of Common Buckwheat

“…It is certain that GS will be able to accelerate breeding of various crops that have been neglected so far. To meet the recent demand for using indigenous crops, such as minor cereals (Hinterthuer, 2017 ), local vegetables (Cernansky, 2015 ), bioenergy crops (Allwright and Taylor, 2016 ), medicinal plants (Kulkarni et al, 2016 ), and forage crops (O'Mara, 2012 ; Kingston-Smith et al, 2013 ), the breeding of various crop species will be required (Abberton et al, 2016 ). GS is expected to improve mass selection of allogamous crops, to which many crops mentioned above belong, because it accelerates mass selection cycles (Yabe et al, 2013 ) and allows the selection of good paternal parents before pollination even for seed yield relating traits (Yabe et al, 2014b ).…”

Exotic ancient plant introductions: part of Indian ‘Ayurveda’ medicinal system

“…Plant extract can help treat dysentery and diarrhoea (ICMR, 2007 5:813-859). For further details see Kulkarni et al (2016).…”