Chemical Bioengineering in Plant Cell Culture

Abstract

Plant secondary metabolites are widely used as valuable medicines, such as paclitaxel, ginsenosides, artemisinin, food additives, and flavors. Plant cell culture technology is a promising alternative method for the mass production of valuable secondary metabolites. Among the manipulative techniques available to promote the productivity of useful secondary metabolites from plant cell cultures, chemical elicitation is one of the best approaches for dramatically increasing secondary metabolite yields. Jasmonic acid (JA) and methyl jasmonate (MJA), derived from linolenic acid, are important natural chemical elicitors. Exogenously adding MJA was shown to enhance production of secondary metabolites in a variety of plant species. Similarly, some synthetic elicitors from plant activators have been proved to be effective in production of secondary metabolites. In this chapter, we describe cell culture processes promoted by a series of synthetic elicitors, including MJA derivatives and benzothiadiazole derivatives, which we describe as chemical biotechnology and bioengineering. The results show that these synthetic elicitor derivatives greatly promote valuable secondary metabolites production in both Taxus chinensis and Panax notoginseng culture cells, which lays the foundation for the industrial application of valuable secondary metabolites (taxanes and ginsenosides).