Transgenesis as a Tool for the Efficient Production of Selected Secondary Metabolites from Plant in Vitro Cultures

Abstract

The plant kingdom abounds in countless species with potential medical uses. Many of them contain valuable secondary metabolites belonging to different classes and demonstrating anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial or antidiabetic properties. Many of these metabolites, e.g., paclitaxel, vinblastine, betulinic acid, chlorogenic acid or ferrulic acid, have potential applications in medicine. Additionally, these compounds have many therapeutic and health-promoting properties. The growing demand for these plant secondary metabolites forces the use of new green biotechnology tools to create new, more productive in vitro transgenic plant cultures. These procedures have yielded many promising results, and transgenic cultures have been found to be safe, efficient and cost-effective sources of valuable secondary metabolites for medicine and industry. This review focuses on the use of various in vitro plant culture systems for the production of secondary metabolites.

An Extract of Transgenic Senna obtusifolia L. hairy roots with Overexpression of PgSS1 Gene in Combination with Chemotherapeutic Agent Induces Apoptosis in the Leukemia Cell Line

“…Despite currently available modern forms of treatment for this disease, new safer and economic alternative therapies based on compounds of natural origin are constantly being sought [3]. Plants have been a valuable source of such biologically-active substances strategies based around interfering in biosynthesis pathways; these act by modifying certain enzymes that catalyze specific chemical reactions, or by making changes in proteins that regulate metabolic pathways [14]. A number of examples of effective metabolic engineering strategies have been described so far [14].…”

“…Plants have been a valuable source of such biologically-active substances strategies based around interfering in biosynthesis pathways; these act by modifying certain enzymes that catalyze specific chemical reactions, or by making changes in proteins that regulate metabolic pathways [14]. A number of examples of effective metabolic engineering strategies have been described so far [14]. For example, our previous studies show that overexpression of AtPAP1 (Arabidopsis thaliana the production of anthocyanin pigment 1 (PAP1) gene encoding an MYB transcription factor) increases production of phenolic compounds in hairy roots of Leonurus sibiricus L. with better biological activities in comparison to untransformed roots [19].…”

Plant regeneration and transformation of Trachyspermum ammi using Agrobacterium tumefaciens and zygotic embryos

“…The growing demand for these plant secondary metabolites suggests the use of biotechnology tools to produce transgenic plants in vitro. These methods have yielded valuable results and revealing that the production of transgenic plants is efficient and cost-effective to produce valuable secondary metabolite resources for medicine and industry [ 41 ].…”

“…One of the most important ways to produce valuable plant secondary metabolites is to manipulate plant metabolic pathways by overexpressing or silencing selected elements in their biosynthesis pathway [ 41 , 46 ]. Metabolic pathway manipulation is performed to increase the content of secondary metabolites (terpenoids) in the cultivation of many laboratory plants [ 47 – 49 ].…”

Production of Multiple triterpenes Including Taraxasterol in Transgenic Tobacco Overexpressing Multifunctional Oxidosqualene Cyclase (TcOSC1) of Taraxacum Coreanum

“…Genetic engineering of plants is useful technology for producing valuable secondary compounds (Verpoorte and Memelink 2002;Wu and Chappell 2008;Kowalczyk et al 2020). Production of triterpenes from other plant species or microbial hosts via metabolic engineering might be a promising technology for cost-effective production.…”