Strategies to Improve Secondary Metabolite Production

Many biotechnological strategies have been taken and put into practice for improving the production of secondary metabolites from medicinal plants. These include screening for high yielding cell lines, media modification, precursor feeding, and elicitation treatment.  

Plant cell culture medium includes inorganic compounds and phytohormones. Changing the medium components (concentration, proportion, and form) is a very powerful way of enhancing the culture efficiency of plant cell cultures. Unsuitable conditions often reduce the efficiency. For example, high auxin levels can stimulate cell growth, but can often negatively influence seeondary metabolite production.  

An elicitor may be defined as a substance that initiates plant cell stress responses and then affects cell metabolism processes when introduced in small concentrations to a living cell system. Elicitation is used to induce or enhance biosynthesis of secondary metabolites by the addition of trace 

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