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Secondary metabolites:
During the plant metabolic pathways, some chemicals are produced but which
may not be of direct use to the plant are called as secondary metabolites. These chemicals
may be alkaloids, terpenoids, flavonoids or host of glycosides.
Uses of tissue culture techniques for production of secondary plant metabolites
Plant cells in culture offer many advandages over intact plants for secondary
metabolites production and their biosynthetic studies. These are as follows:
1. Plant cells are relatively easy to grow and can be kept under strict controlled
nutritional and environmental conditions. Hence the uncertainities of climate and
soil can be avoided.
2. Cells are cultured aseptically, devoid of many microorganisms or insects etc.
3. Suspension cultures, offers a very effective way of incorporating precursors which
are often difficult to admininster to the plant growing in nature.
4. The technology is now available for the relatively large scale production of plant
suspensions, in batch culture, closed continuous cultures system, open continuous
culture systems etc. And may also eventually provides an efficient means of
producing commercially important plant products.
However, in order to realize the industrial applications of plant cell culture for medicinal
compounds production, it is essential to satisfy the following conditions as minimum
requirements:
1. Rate of cell growth and biosynthesis should be high enough to give a good
production of the final product in a short period of time.
2. The cultured cells should be genetically stable to give a constant yield of a
plant.
3. The metabolites should be accumulated in cells without being catabolized
rapidly of preferably; they should be realized into the liquid medium.
4. Production cost including the culture medium, precursor and chemical
extraction should be low enough to be profitable to the industries.
Some secondary metabolites detected in plant tissue culture.
Secondary plant products
Stock plant
Flavones and flavonoids
Quercetin
Lycopersicon esculantum
Negretin
Solanum tuberosum
Chalcones and deoxyflavones
Daidzein
G. max
Pisatin
Pisum sativum
Steroidal alkaloids
Tomatin
L. esculentum
Diosgenin
S. nigrum