Genetic Enhancement of Plant Secondary Metabolites Recent Developments and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) are convenient intrinsic products synthesized through secondary metabolism in plants influenced by other environmental stressors and bio-geo-chemical factors. Various biotechnological techniques such as hairy root culture, ploidy engineering, genome editing, RNA interference, etc. are available for increased production of diverse secondary metabolites in plants having hitherto known medicinal properties. Plant tissue culture is useful for conservation, micro-propagation, and overproduction of medicinal plants. It also provides the primary platform for biotechnology-based breeding methods (BBBMs). Targeted genome editing has become a promising BBBM that can produce custom-tailored medicinal plants with desirable secondary metabolites. Here, we discuss the recent developments of BBBMs to increase the concentration of desired metabolites in important medicinal crops and the prospects of various genetic enhancement techniques. We also shed light on the recent progress in the genetic enhancement methods, their execution, industrial aspects, and international and national regulations for genetic manipulation to develop high-value crops for overall economic growth and sustainable utilization of hitherto explored bioresources. We pointed out the pitfalls and challenges in genetic modification of crops, success stories of genetic enhancement of PSMs, and future perspectives. Several techniques like endogenous target mimics (eTMs), CRISPR/Cas, PTC-based methods, NGS, and bioinformatics-based methods were tested for increased production rate and quality of various PSMs. Utilization of these techniques in combination may provide higher efficiency to develop genetically improved crops and enhance the production of PSMs for industrial scale and human health promotion.