Tropane alkaloids plant biotechnology

Yamada Y, Tabata M (1997) Plant biotechnology of tropane alkaloids. Plant Biotechnol 14(1) 1-10... 

A. Strauss, in Y. P. S. Bajaj (Ed.), Biotechnology in agriculture and forestry 7, Medicinal and aromatic plants 11. Hyoscyamus spp. In vitro culture, and the production of tropane alkaloids, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 1989, pp. 286-314. 

The industrial interest in the tropane alkaloids is well reflected in the large number of patents concerning the plant cell biotechnology of tropane alkaloids (Table XIII). The first reports of the occurrence of tropane... 

In Table XIV through XVIII the occurrence of alkaloids in various types of cell and tissue cultures of Atropa, Datura, Duboisia, Hyoscyamus, and various other species in the family Solanaceae is summarized. From these data it is clear that the production of tropane alkaloids in cell suspension cultures is rather low. Only in root cultures has production similar to, or even higher than, the original plant been obtained. For this reason an extensive discussion on efforts to improve production in cell suspension cultures is not useful instead, we briefly deal with the application of plant biotechnology for the improvement of the tropane alkaloid-producing plants. Finally, we discuss the bioconversion of added precursors. 

Yamada, Y., Yun, D.J., and Hashimoto, T. 1994. Genetic engineering of medicinal plants for tropane alkaloid production. In Ryu, D.D.Y. and Furusaki, S. (eds.). Advances in Plant Biotechnology. Elsevier Science Publishers, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, pp. 83-93. 

Hyoscyamine 1 and scopolamine 6 are the tropane alkaloids with the most important therapeutic value. The current commercially exploited sources for then-production are different plants belonging to Atropa or Datura species in Europe and Duboisia myoporoides R.Br. in Australia [8]. Faced with the described above problems accompanying the production process based on plant material, many research groups focused their attention on development of alternative biotechnological process for tropane alkaloids production. 

Oksman-Caldentey, K.M. (2007) Tropane and nicotine alkaloid biosynthesis-novel approaches towards biotechnological production of plant-derived pharmaceuticals. Curr. Pharm. 

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