Secondary Metabolites from Plant Sources

Abstract

A Plant can be considered as a storehouse of a huge number of chemicals biosynthesized by many metabolic pathways like photosynthesis, glycolysis, Kreb’s cycle, shikimic acid pathway, mevalonic acid pathway, etc. Primary metabolites include sugars, citric acid, Kreb's cycle intermediates, amino acids, protein, nucleic acid, and polysaccharides. Primary metabolites are identical in all living plant cells and they carry out basic life activities like growth, cell division, storage, respiration, and reproduction. On the other hand, the secondary plant metabolites, well-known as phytoconstituents are derived from primary metabolites by the influence of various surroundings stress like light, temperature, and different metals with the help of several metabolic pathways. The formation of secondary metabolites is very much specific to the plant family concern. By using similar primary metabolites, plants of various families produce a large number of different secondary metabolites having various pharmaceutical values. Generally, secondary metabolites of the plant have a great role to defense from herbivorous and pathogens, attract other animals and protect from UV radiation. Moreover, secondary metabolites show a lot of importance in the pharmaceutical application as medicines used for the treatment of various diseases in the folklore medicine as well as traditional medicine. They are also used as flavors in pharmaceutical ingredients, perfumes in pharmaceutical and perfumery industry, insecticides, dyes, polymers used for the preparation new drug delivery systems and therefore, they have a great value to economic concern.