Improving the Quality of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Through Metabolic Engineering

Abstract

Secondary metabolites in plants having aromatic and medicinal properties are commercially usable and are being used for health protection in different forms such as in drugs, pheromones, flavors, antioxidants, fragrances, insecticides, and dyes. About 25% of the legal drugs have been synthesized directly from natural substances obtained from plants, and 40% involve chemically modified natural substances. Owing to immense demand of these secondary metabolites, the deficient production capacity of plants must be overcomed. Plant breeding is a traditional, time-consuming, and limited way of improving the secondary metabolites production capacity of medicinal plants. Metabolic engineering in this regard can be a helpful and economical method which involves insertion of genes of interest into other cells and modify target pathways, allowing for improved processing of usable natural substances as well as the development of novel compounds. This review illustrates the importance of medicinal plants in producing secondary metabolites. Here we discussed the pathways involved in producing secondary metabolites and the role of metabolic engineering in manipulating these pathways to get the required results. Additionally, we explained how RNAi-mediated gene silencing helps to regulate different genes involved in synthesizing useful natural substances.KeywordsSecondary metabolitesMedicinal plantsMetabolic engineeringNovel compoundsRNAi-mediated gene silencing