Enhancement of Some Pharmaceutically Important Secondary Metabolites By in vitro Techniques

Abstract

Abstract
Secondary metabolites are economically important as drugs, dyes and pigments, pesticides, and food additives. The evolving commercial importance of secondary metabolites has in recent years resulted in a great interest in mechanism of secondary metabolism, especially in the production of bioactive plant metabolites by means of tissue culture technology. Plant cell and tissue culture technologies can be established for both multiplication and extraction of secondary metabolites. Strain improvement, methods for the selection of high-producing cell lines, and medium optimizations can lead to an enhancement in secondary metabolite production. Organ cultures and in vitro biomass production often have sites of synthesis and storage of secondary metabolites in separate compartments. Elicitors, compounds triggering the formation of secondary metabolites, also increase the production of secondary metabolites. Furthermore, in vitro production of secondary metabolites in plant cell suspension cultures has been reported from various medicinal plants. The present review highlights the nature, applications and methods for scaling up commercial production of pharmaceutically valuable secondary metabolites by in vitro tissue culture.
Keywords: Secondary metabolites, biosynthetic pathways, elicitors, immobilization, plant tissue cultures, taxol, camptothecin, diosgenin, vinblastine and vincristine, morphine and codeine, L-DOPA