Application of Biotechnology in Producing Plant Bio-active Compounds

Abstract

In the new global economy, technological advancement, increasing population density, ageing and widely reported sanitary problems intensified by social underdevelopment have justified an increasing need for sustainable and effective measures to alleviate some of the most common burdens the society has suffered from, as broadly reported by the World Health Organization (WHO). The global health has increasingly become a central issue in promoting individual wellbeing, which directly affects collective progress. Over the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have massively invested in new technologies, aiming at discovering new chemicals and progressing knowledge in synthetic compounds and in high-throughput workflows. In plant science, high-throughput screening (HTS) strongly supports drug discovery by accelerating the screening of biologically diverse samples, which at its very basic stages involves the isolation of biota samples and the determination of the structure of the underlying bio-actives. The resulting automation chain brings about fast-paced effective production of medicinal molecules, excelling in performance conventional approaches. Nevertheless, HTS is one single example of how technology has positively contributed to drug discovery. Since the beginning of civilisation, medicinal plants have offered the fundamental means to humankind for fighting diseases. In the current literature, it has been reported that more than 200,000 plant derivatives, among which key natural products, are being used in therapies for treating severe health conditions such as congestive heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias. However, production yield and compounds toxicity are still among the fundamental barriers of compounds production and drug discovery. Gene editing is another fruitful example of biotechnology-driven production of compounds. A growing body of literature has reported on CRISPR-Cas 9 modifying gene expression, whose phenotype is fundamental in modulating the biosynthesis of bio-active compounds. Ultimately, artificial intelligence (AI) is arriving strongly, potentially to stay, and impacting the pharmaceutical sector. Several consortiums have been formed and companies founded, over the last few years, with the purpose of applying AI technology in molecular design, drug screening and genotype-phenotype analysis for predicting drug activity in genetically engineered species. However, we have constantly argued on the need for increasing efforts towards improving plant metabolites production, via biotechnological resources, mainly recombinant-DNA technology: first, because certain compounds are scarce in nature, and second, because new bio-actives could bring about genetically engineered plant cells. Hence, the aim of this chapter is to review recent progress in the production of plant bio-active compounds promoted by biotechnological advancement.