Plant tissue culture and regeneration

Plant tissue culture and regeneration, at the molecular level, involves growing plant cells or organs in controlled laboratory conditions and manipulating the genetic and biochemical pathways that govern how plants produce specialized compounds. Much of the current work centers on secondary metabolites — molecules like terpenoid indole alkaloids that plants synthesize for defense or signaling but that also serve as pharmaceuticals, dyes, and agrochemicals — and on techniques such as Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and hairy root culture that allow researchers to boost or redirect their production without relying on slow-growing whole plants. A central challenge is deciphering the signal transduction cascades triggered by elicitors, the chemical or biological agents that prompt a plant cell to ramp up metabolite synthesis, since understanding these pathways would make it possible to engineer more predictable and scalable production systems. Active directions include refining somatic embryogenesis protocols to regenerate stably transformed plants with high fidelity, and using genetic engineering to rewire biosynthetic networks toward compounds that are otherwise produced only in trace amounts.

Works

177,060

Total citations

2,394,184

Keywords

Plant Secondary MetabolitesAgrobacterium-Mediated TransformationElicitationSomatic EmbryogenesisHairy Root CultureTerpenoid Indole Alkaloids