Genetic Manipulation of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

Medicinal and aromatic plants are important sources of compounds that have benefited human health. Among these plant-derived compounds are those having anti-cancer properties such as taxol from the Pacific Yew tree, and vinblastine from the periwinkle plant. These compounds are usually products of plant secondary metabolic pathways.

The cloning of genes in the secondary metabolic pathways can help facilitate the manipulation of the metabolites from medicinal plants, said researchers at the Universitat de Lleida and the Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats (ICREA) in Spain. Their paper published in Plant Cell Reports discussed the advances in metabolic pathway engineering of specific classes of compounds in medicinal and aromatic plants. The compounds mentioned in the review include indole, nicotine, and menthol.  

The researchers recommend that commercial cultivation practices be developed for medicinal plants as most of these are still gathered from the wild. In addition, the development of high throughput screening systems for chemical and biological activity, and advances in the cloning of genes involved in relevant pathways, may help advance the discovery and engineering of plants with the compound of interest, the researchers added.

More details can be found on the paper, accessible to journal subscribers at
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r13821t125275h07/.