Specialized Plant Metabolism Characteristics and Impact on Target Molecule Biotechnological Production. Matsuura Hélio Nitta,Malik Sonia,de Costa Fernanda,Yousefzadi Morteza,Mirjalili Mohammad Hossein,Arroo Randolph,Bhambra Avninder S,Strnad Miroslav,Bonfill Mercedes,Fett-Neto Arthur Germano Molecular biotechnology Plant secondary metabolism evolved in the context of highly organized and differentiated cells and tissues, featuring massive chemical complexity operating under tight environmental, developmental and genetic control. Biotechnological demand for natural products has been continuously increasing because of their significant value and new applications, mainly as pharmaceuticals. Aseptic production systems of plant secondary metabolites have improved considerably, constituting an attractive tool for increased, stable and large-scale supply of valuable molecules. Surprisingly, to date, only a few examples including taxol, shikonin, berberine and artemisinin have emerged as success cases of commercial production using this strategy. The present review focuses on the main characteristics of plant specialized metabolism and their implications for current strategies used to produce secondary compounds in axenic cultivation systems. The search for consonance between plant secondary metabolism unique features and various in vitro culture systems, including cell, tissue, organ, and engineered cultures, as well as heterologous expression in microbial platforms, is discussed. Data to date strongly suggest that attaining full potential of these biotechnology production strategies requires being able to take advantage of plant specialized metabolism singularities for improved target molecule yields and for bypassing inherent difficulties in its rational manipulation. 10.1007/s12033-017-0056-1

Improvement of phytochemical production by plant cells and organ culture and by genetic engineering. Nielsen Erik,Temporiti Marta Elisabetta Eleonora,Cella Rino Plant cell reports Plants display an amazing ability to synthesize a vast array of secondary metabolites that are an inexhaustible source of phytochemicals, bioactive molecules some of which impact the human health. Phytochemicals present in medicinal herbs and spices have long been used as natural remedies against illness. Plant tissue culture represents an alternative to whole plants as a source of phytochemicals. This approach spares agricultural land that can be used for producing food and other raw materials, thus favoring standardized phytochemical production regardless of climatic adversities and political events. Over the past 20 years, different strategies have been developed to increase the synthesis and the extraction of phytochemicals from tissue culture often obtaining remarkable results. Moreover, the availability of genomics and metabolomics tools, along with improved recombinant methods related to the ability to overexpress, silence or disrupt one or more genes of the pathway of interest promise to open new exciting possibilities of metabolic engineering. This review provides a general framework of the cellular and molecular tools developed so far to enhance the yield of phytochemicals. Additionally, some emerging topics such as the culture of cambial meristemoid cells, the selection of plant cell following the expression of genes encoding human target proteins, and the bioextraction of phytochemicals from plant material have been addressed. Altogether, the herein described techniques and results are expected to improve metabolic engineering tools aiming at improving the production of phytochemicals of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical interest. 10.1007/s00299-019-02415-z

Application of genetics and biotechnology for improving medicinal plants. Niazian Mohsen Planta MAIN CONCLUSION:Plant tissue culture has been used for conservation, micropropagation, and in planta overproduction of some pharma molecules of medicinal plants. New biotechnology-based breeding methods such as targeted genome editing methods are able to create custom-designed medicinal plants with different secondary metabolite profiles. For a long time, humans have used medicinal plants for therapeutic purposes and in food and other industries. Classical biotechnology techniques have been exploited in breeding medicinal plants. Now, it is time to apply faster biotechnology-based breeding methods (BBBMs) to these valuable plants. Assessment of the genetic diversity, conservation, proliferation, and overproduction are the main ways by which genetics and biotechnology can help to improve medicinal plants faster. Plant tissue culture (PTC) plays an important role as a platform to apply other BBBMs in medicinal plants. Agrobacterium-mediated gene transformation and artificial polyploidy induction are the main BBBMs that are directly dependent on PTC. Manageable regulation of endogens and/or transferred genes via engineered zinc-finger proteins or transcription activator-like effectors can help targeted manipulation of secondary metabolite pathways in medicinal plants. The next-generation sequencing techniques have great potential to study the genetic diversity of medicinal plants through restriction-site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq) technique and also to identify the genes and enzymes that are involved in the biosynthetic pathway of secondary metabolites through precise transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq). The sequence-specific nucleases of transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), zinc-finger nucleases, and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-associated (Cas) are the genome editing methods that can produce user-designed medicinal plants. These current targeted genome editing methods are able to manage plant synthetic biology and open new gates to medicinal plants to be introduced into appropriate industries. 10.1007/s00425-019-03099-1

[Application of plant tissue culture in field of Chinese medicine resources]. Wang Juan,Li Jin-Xin,Li Jian-Li,Gao Wen-Yuan Zhongguo Zhong yao za zhi = Zhongguo zhongyao zazhi = China journal of Chinese materia medica Plant tissue culture technology has been widely used in the field of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) resources with its unique advantages, playing an important role in the protection of TCM resources. In this review, some applications of plant tissue culture were summarized, including production of active compounds by using plant tissue culture, genetic diversity analysis, Dao-di herbs, elicitor application, biosynthesis and transgenic plants. Through the above researches will promote the further development of plant tissue culture technology, making it play a greater role in the field of TCM resources. 10.19540/j.cnki.cjcmm.2017.0103