Department of Plant Sciences, Central University of Himachal Pradesh, Shahpur, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India.
Department of Botany, Central University of Jammu, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India.
Methods Mol Biol. 2023;2575:153-179. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-2716-7_8.
Plants possess a plethora of important secondary metabolites, which are unique sources of natural pigments, pharmaceutical compounds, food additives, natural pesticides, and other industrial components. The commercial significance of such metabolites/compounds has directed the research toward their production and exploration of methods for enhancement of production. Biotechnological tools are critical in selecting, integrating, multiplying, improving, and analyzing medicinal plants for secondary metabolite production. Out of many techniques that are being explored to enhance secondary metabolite production, "plant cell transfection" is the latest tool to achieve maximum output from the plant source. It is based upon the introduction of foreign DNA into the plant cell relying on physical treatment such as electroporation, cell squeezing, sonoporation, optical transfection nanoparticles, magnetofection, and chemical treatment or biological treatment that depends upon carrier. One of the promising tools that have been exploited is CRISPR-Cas9. Overall, the abovementioned tools focus on the stable transfection of desired gene transcripts. Since the integration and continuous expression of transfected gene of particular trait represents stable transfection of host cell genome, resulting from transfer of required trait to daughter cells ultimately leading to enhanced production of secondary metabolites of interest. This chapter will review a set of biotechnological tools that are candidates for achieving the enhanced bioactive compound production indicated here to be used for drug discovery.
植物拥有丰富的重要次生代谢产物，这些产物是天然色素、药物化合物、食品添加剂、天然杀虫剂和其他工业成分的独特来源。这些代谢物/化合物的商业重要性促使人们研究它们的生产，并探索提高产量的方法。生物技术工具在选择、整合、增殖、改进和分析药用植物以生产次生代谢产物方面至关重要。在探索提高次生代谢产物生产的众多技术中，“植物细胞转染”是从植物来源获得最大产量的最新工具。它基于依靠物理处理（如电穿孔、细胞挤压、声孔、光学转染纳米粒子、磁转染）将外源 DNA 导入植物细胞，或者依赖载体的化学处理或生物处理。已经利用的有前途的工具之一是 CRISPR-Cas9。总的来说，上述工具都侧重于所需基因转录本的稳定转染。由于特定性状的转染基因的整合和持续表达代表了宿主细胞基因组的稳定转染，这是由于所需性状转移到子细胞中，最终导致感兴趣的次生代谢产物产量增加。本章将回顾一组生物技术工具，它们是实现这里所指出的增强生物活性化合物生产的候选工具，可用于药物发现。
