Chapter 1 Plant Biotechnology for the Production of Alkaloids: Present Status and Prospects

Abstract

This chapter reviews the state of the art of plant cell biotechnology for the production of commercially important alkaloids. Plant cell and tissue culture methods play an important role in plant breeding and improvement. For plants used for the isolation of alkaloids, these methods could be of great help in breeding varieties with increased alkaloid production. Considering plant cell cultures, large-scale culturing of plant cells is feasible. However, for none of the alkaloids reviewed has an industrial, large-scale production been realized. As cell suspension cultures of alkaloid-producing plants have been studied exhaustively, little is to be expected from further empirical studies on the influence of growth conditions and selection. Only insight into the regulation of secondary metabolism provides clues for increasing production to levels necessary for an industrial process. The ultimate goal is genetic engineering for improving secondary metabolite production in plants or plant cell cultures. Initial results for certain steps in a biosynthetic route have been reported. Compared to studies on secondary metabolism in microorganisms, the work with plants is hampered by the fact that no mutants are available which lack certain steps in a biosynthetic pathway.