Plant Secondary Metabolites: Recent Advances and Opportunities

Submission Deadline: 31 December 2020 (closed)

Guest Editors

Summary

Studies on plant secondary metabolites have been increasing over the last 50 years. These molecules are known to play a major role in the adaptation of plants to their environment, but also represent an important source of active pharmaceuticals. Plant cell culture technologies were introduced at the end of the 1960s as a possible tool for both studying and producing plant secondary metabolites. The main advantages of using plant cell and tissue culture techniques for the production of plant secondary metabolites are obtainable as well as the different biotechnological approaches available to improve their production of metabolites, including important alkaloids with anticancer properties and bioactive phenolics. Moreover, many secondary metabolites hold valuable effects on human health and are used as bioactive components of drugs. Plant secondary metabolites have been an abundant area of chemical investigation for many years, driving the development of both analytical chemistry and of new synthetic reactions and methodologies. The subject is multi-disciplinary with chemists, biochemists and plant scientists all contributing to our current understanding. In recent years there has been an improvement in interest from other disciplines, related to the realization that secondary metabolites are dietary components that may have a significant impression on human health, and to the development of gene technology that permits modulation of the contents of desirable and undesirable components.

This special issue is proposed to explore the most recent happenings and innovation occurs during recent years in the field of plant secondary metabolites. The manuscripts are being saught that address the following topics:
1) Plant derived secondary metabolites: Source, structures and biology;
2) Secondary metabolites biosynthesis from plants;
3) Microbial mediated enhances of Secondary metabolites of plants;
4) Physiological and molecular mechanisms for the production of secondary metabolites in plants;
5) Application of plant biotechnology for the effective production of secondary metabolites;
6) Transcriptomics approaches for large scale identification of genes involved in plant secondary metabolism;
7) Application of bioinformatics for production of plant secondary metabolites;
8) Technical obstacles in plant secondary metabolites production.

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Published Papers