Plant cell and tissue cultures for the production of medicine, cosmetic and food ingredients

Abstract

Plant tissue culture is the technique of maintaining and growing plant cells, tissues or organs on artificial medium under defined physical and chemical conditions in vitro. Different plant tissue culture systems have been extensively studied to improve and enhance the production of plant chemicals in various medicinal plants. The aim of our study is to utilize plant tissue culture techniques for the production of medicine, cosmetic and food ingredients by using Thai medicinal plants. We selected three plants including Trichosanthes cucumerina L., Moringa oleifera Lam. and Oroxylum indicum (L.) Benth. ex Kurz based on information from Thai traditional medicine. The callus from those plants was induced by using suitable phytohormones and growth conditions. Subsequently, the cell suspension culture was established by agitation of callus the Erlenmeyer flask containing suitable liquid media. Various elicitors such as methyl jasmonate, chiotosan and yeast extract were added to cell suspension culture aiming to increase the production of desired compounds. The contents of compounds were analyzed by using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) together with the determination of total phenolic and total flavonoid contents. The biological activities, such as antioxidant and cytotoxicity were also tested. In addition, we also aim to study the biosynthetic pathway of bryonolic acid in Tricosanthes cucumerina by combining the metabolite profiles and expression of the genes from transcriptomic data to narrow down the candidate genes involved in the biosynthetic pathway. Furthermore, we aim to clone, characterize and produce MRK protein which is a potent anti HIV-I reverse transcriptase from Thai bitter melon (Momordica charantia). In this topic, I will present the recent progress of our study and perspective about utilizing plant tissue culture as an alternative source for the production of valuable secondary metabolites.