Boosting the Production of Bioactive Compounds: Biotechnology and Metabolic Engineering of Medicinal Plants
A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Plant Sciences".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 1171
Special Issue Editors
Interests: molecular biotechnology; recombinant proteins; biopharmaceuticals; genetic engineering; medicinal plants
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: natural compounds; phytochemistry; plant in vitro culture; polyphenols; methods of determination of antioxidant activity; phytotherapy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The perception and exploration of plants has changed significantly as a result of exceptional advances in biotechnology. Plant material has long been applied for various industrial purposes; however, its role in treating human health problems cannot be overestimated.
Plant-derived bioactive compounds display numerous therapeutic properties, including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anticancer, antibacterial, hepato- or neuroprotective effects. Many of them gave rise to current, effective pharmacological treatments. Yet medicinal plants provide minute amounts of bioactives in their natural process, and their chemical synthesis at an industrial level is quite challenging due to their complex chemical structure. These constraints set the limits for meeting market demands that are continuously growing. Hence, there is a great need for increasing natural biosynthetic rates for bioactive compounds.
To eliminate this bottleneck in bioactive compound production, two types of approaches can be considered: increasing the synthesis level through plant tissue culture-based biotechnology, or exploiting the methods of metabolic engineering that alter metabolic pathways behind a desired compound synthesis and accumulation.
The objective of this Special Issue is to present the current knowledge and trends in scaling up the synthesis of bioactive substances, based on the aforementioned approaches. Research on the optimization of tissue culture conditions by physical factors or growth medium components, endogenous and exogenous enzyme and/or transcription factor overexpression, is especially—but not exclusively—welcome.
Importantly: (1) Manuscripts must report on the exact active ingredient or defined extract (papers describing the effects of mixed extraction of unknown composition will not be considered for publication); (2) the manuscripts covering attempts to increase the level of bioactives in tissue and organ culture by various factors must present at least the theoretical background of the molecular mechanism responsible for the production boosting.
We are looking forward to receiving your papers.
Dr. Katarzyna Hnatuszko-Konka
Dr. Izabela Grzegorczyk-Karolak
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- bioactive compounds
- plant tissue culture
- elicitors
- metabolic engineering
- gene expression
- medicinal plants
- metabolic pathway
- plant biotechnology
