Plant derived bioactive molecules: Culture vessels to bioreactors

Abstract

Bioactive compounds are the compounds having pharmacological or toxicological effects on humans and animals. At present, the bioactive compounds are categorized into two groups, secondary metabolites (originating from natural sources like plants, mammals, fungi, bacteria etc.) and therapeutic recombinant molecules (which are produced by using recombinant DNA technology in bacteria, mammals, plants etc.). Of the compounds produced from various sources, secondary metabolites produced from plants command highest market demand. Plants are also proved to be an ideal host system for the production of recombinant therapeutic molecules. Therefore, there has been a long pursuit for development of a technology which can provide high yielding plant based bioactive production system. An amalgam of plant cell culture and bioreactor technology was crucial in this direction. The plant bioreactor technology, so developed, has been put to the test many times for commercial scale production of plant bioactive molecules. There have been instances of success, but in general growth of plant bioreactor industry has been very slow. This chapter highlights various aspects of slow but successful growth of plant based bioactive production from culture vessel to bioreactor. We have evaluated the key drivers and accelerators which have made the journey of plant bioreactor industry successful. Speed breakers of this journey have also been discussed. Thorough and rigorous analysis of these parameters may help the industry/academia to speed up the growth of plant bioreactor industry for the production of bioactives.