Prospects for the Use of Plant Cell Culture as Alternatives to Produce Secondary Metabolites

Abstract

Plants have proven to be a beneficial means for uncovering new products having therapeutic interest in the drug augmentation. Human beings uses plant-produced secondary metabolites since from the prehistoric times. Due to high usage of secondary metabolites in diverse marketing sectors, such as pharmaceutical, food, and chemical industries, the demand for the most relevant and accepted method to separate these metabolites from plants is huge. Different extraction techniques have been used to obtain secondary metabolites, and many of these techniques are built on the extracting strength of solvents and the application of mixing and/or heat. In addition to traditional methods, several new methods have been established, but till now none of them are considered as a standard method for elicitation of secondary metabolites. In the late 1960s, plant cell culture technologies were found as a promising tool for both investigating and designing plant secondary metabolites. With the help of cell cultures, phytochemicals are not only produced in adequate quantity, but also discard the existence of intrusive compounds that develops in the field-grown plants. This technology serves advantageous over classical methods. Many approaches have been used to amplify the yield of secondary metabolite manufacture by cultured plant cells. Among these approaches are selecting a plant with immense biosynthetic capacity, acquiring efficacious cell line for growth and production of the concerned metabolite, manipulating culture environment, elicitation, metabolic engineering, and organ culture. Mass cultivation of plant cells is done with the help of different bioreactors. Application of cell culture provides various benefits including the synthesis of secondary metabolites, working in controlled conditions as well as autonomous to soil and climate conditions. Elicitor which may be biotic or abiotic is considered as one of the stress agents to obtain increased amount of secondary metabolites from different parts of the plants. Polysaccharides like chitosans are natural elicitors which are benefitted for plant cell’s immobilization and permeabilization. A new path has been initiated in current years for secondary metabolite production with the help of elicitors in plant tissue culture. The different criteria that influence the production and accumulation of secondary metabolites include elicitor concentrations, exposure time, cell line, nutrient composition, and age or stage of the culture. In a number of plant cell cultures, elicitors have intensified the production of sesquiterpenoid, phytoalexin, terpenoid indole alkaloids, isoflavonoid, phytoalexins, coumarins, etc. Regardless of these efforts of the past few decades, plant cell cultures have led to very little economic successes for the production of esteemed secondary compounds. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to highlight the prospects of plant cell culture to produce secondary metabolites, and also provides an overview on the important approaches used for the secondary metabolite production and their improvement strategies.