Molecular farming approach towards bioactive compounds

Abstract

Medicinal plants are the chief significant resource of therapeutic drugs for healthcare of the world's population. Because of their enormous structural diversity and vast array of pharmacological functions, secondary metabolites have become an attractive and imperative basis for research. Bioprocessing has been successful for enhanced secondary metabolite production in numerous cases. Various plant cell culture techniques characterize a probable renewable source of therapeutic compounds, which cannot be produced by chemical synthesis. Therefore, it has been reported as an important step in the direction of industrial production via plant biotechnology. Various biotechnological tools are significant to select, multiply, improve and analyse medicinal plants. In this regard, genetic transformation is a prevailing tool for improved production of novel secondary metabolites. Functional genomics provides high-throughput analysis of multiple genes and their expression that becomes necessary for understanding the regulatory mechanism and biochemical pathways associated with secondary metabolites. Combinatorial biosynthesis is another approach for the production of novel natural products. Here, we present an update on biotechnological approaches that are used for enhanced production of novel bioactive compounds in medicinal plants. The review also gives perspectives on upcoming research in this area.