Does abiotic stresses enhance the production of secondary metabolites? A review (original) (raw)

Medicinal Plants’ Stress Factors: Effects on Metabolites and Novel Perspectives for Tolerance

BAU Journal - Health and Well-Being

Medicinal plants are rich in secondary metabolites representing different chemical classes and synthesized by various biochemical pathways. However, these compounds are susceptible to potential herbal predators and to environmental influences. Several factors induce different biotic and abiotic stresses (drought, cold, salinity, heat) that lead to fluctuations in the biogenesis and accumulation of secondary metabolites by which plants react to overcome the threatening stress conditions. This contribution aims to give an overview of the various medicinal plant defense mechanisms against imminent threats and their impact on secondary metabolites profiles in the most effective medicinal plant species such as the levels of vincristine in Catharanthus roseus which is affected by salinity and drought stress, sage (Salvia officinalis) that showed fluctuations in terpenes level under drought stress and mineral contents in the soil and Papaver somniferum that exhibited a decrease in alkaloid...

Plant Secondary Metabolites Produced in Response to Abiotic Stresses Has Potential Application in Pharmaceutical Product Development

Molecules, 2022

Plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) are vital for human health and constitute the skeletal framework of many pharmaceutical drugs. Indeed, more than 25% of the existing drugs belong to PSMs. One of the continuing challenges for drug discovery and pharmaceutical industries is gaining access to natural products, including medicinal plants. This bottleneck is heightened for endangered species prohibited for large sample collection, even if they show biological hits. While cultivating the pharmaceutically interesting plant species may be a solution, it is not always possible to grow the organism outside its natural habitat. Plants affected by abiotic stress present a potential alternative source for drug discovery. In order to overcome abiotic environmental stressors, plants may mount a defense response by producing a diversity of PSMs to avoid cells and tissue damage. Plants either synthesize new chemicals or increase the concentration (in most instances) of existing chemicals, includin...

Environmental Factors on Secondary Metabolism of Medicinal Plants

Plants are unrivaled in the common world in both the number and unpredictability of secondary metabolites they produce, and the pervasive phenylpropanoids and the heredity explicit glucosinolates speak to two such vast and artificially various gatherings. Advances in genome-empowered natural chemistry and metabolomic innovations have incredibly expanded the comprehension of their metabolic systems in assorted plant species. There additionally has been some advancement in explaining the quality administrative systems that are critical to their combination, gathering and capacity. Secondary metabolites have essential defense and flagging jobs, and they add to the general quality of creating and aging natural products. Particularly, light conditions and temperature are exhibited to have an unmistakable job on the organization of phenolic compounds. The present survey centers around the examinations on components related with the guideline of key secondary metabolites, mostly phenolic compounds, in different plants are a helpful cluster of normal items as well as an essential piece of plant defense framework against pathogenic assaults and environmental stresses. With astounding biological exercises, plant SMs are progressively utilized as drug fixings and nourishment added substances for remedial, fragrant and culinary purposes. Different hereditary, ontogenic, morphogenetic and environmental components can impact the biosynthesis and aggregation of SMs. As indicated by the writing reports, for instance, SMs gathering is unequivocally reliant on an assortment of environmental factors, for example, light, temperature, soil water, soil richness and saltiness, and for most plants, an adjustment in an individual factor may modify the substance of SMs regardless of whether different elements stay steady. Here, we survey with accentuation how every one of single elements to influence the collection of plant secondary metabolites, and lead a relative examination of applicable normal items in the stressed and unstressed plants. Hopefully, this narrative survey will diagram a general picture of environmental elements in charge of change in plant SMs, give a handy method to get reliable quality and high amount of bioactive compounds in vegetation, and present a few proposals for future innovative work.

Understanding the consequence of environmental stress for accumulation of secondary metabolites in medicinal and aromatic plants

Journal of Applied Research on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, 2020

This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Abiotic and Biotic Elicitors–Role in Secondary Metabolites Production through In Vitro Culture of Medicinal Plants

Abiotic and Biotic Stress in Plants - Recent Advances and Future Perspectives, 2016

Plant secondary metabolites are having the great application in human health and nutritional aspect. Plant cell and organ culture systems are feasible option for the production of secondary metabolites that are of commercial importance in pharmaceuticals, food additives, flavors, and other industrial materials. The stress, including various elicitors or signal molecules, often induces the secondary metabolite production in the plant tissue culture system. The recent developments in elicitation of plant tissue culture have opened a new avenue for the production of secondary metabolite compounds. Secondary metabolite synthesis and accumulation in cell and organ cultures can be triggered by the application of elicitors to the culture medium. Elicitors are the chemical compounds from abiotic and biotic sources that can stimulate stress responses in plants, leading to the enhanced synthesis and accumulation of secondary metabolites or the induction of novel secondary metabolites. Elicitor type, dose, and treatment schedule are major factors determining the effects on the secondary metabolite production. The number of parameters, such as elicitor concentrations, duration of exposure, cell line, nutrient composition, and age or stage of the culture, is also important factors influencing the successful production of biomass and secondary metabolite accumulation. This chapter reviews the various abiotic and biotic elicitors applied to cultural system and their stimulating effects on the accumulation of secondary metabolites.

Review: Regulation of Phytohormones and Environmental Stresses to Increase the Production of Plant Secondary Metabolites

Biotropika: Journal of Tropical Biology, 2021

Secondary metabolites are synthesized by plants when subjected to abiotic and biotic stresses as a defense mechanism and play an ecologically vital role both as pollination attractants and as repellents. These compounds are not essential for the process of growth and development but provide a significant impact on human welfare in various aspects as pharmaceuticals and therapeutics, aroma and taste, biopesticides, and agrochemicals. This natural product has high economic and commercial value, so it is important to explore it along with the increasing needs of consumers and industry at a large scale. Various extensive studies were carried out to improve and increase the production and accumulation of secondary metabolites. One of the strategies adopted in this review is the role of exogenous phytohormones in triggering the production of important secondary metabolites based on their classification, namely terpenoids, phenols, and flavonoids, as well as alkaloids and nitrogen-containing compounds. Bioregulators work as elicitors to induce the production of secondary metabolites through up-regulation of specific gene expression. In some cases, the application of phytohormones combined with exposure to extreme abiotic stresses showed overexpression of secondary metabolite synthesis compared to treatment with only those subjected to phytohormone. The abiotic stress of irradiation, UV-B, temperature, drought, ultrasonic, salinity, and metal stress was discussed in this study. Oxidative conditions under environmental changes trigger the plant to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), which induce various secondary metabolites as part of the regulation of antioxidant systems. Micropropagation of medicinal plants by the addition of exogenous growth regulators could enhance the production and accumulation of important secondary metabolites.

Linking abiotic stress, plant metabolites, biostimulants and functional food

Annals of Applied Biology, 2020

Plants must cope with different environmental stresses during their whole lifetime. Abiotic stresses like drought, salt, mineral nutrition disturbances and temperature stress are commonly interconnected through some physiological events in stressed plants, such as the synthesis of protective plant compounds as a response to stress. Many of these, produced within plant primary or secondary metabolism, act as functional compounds not exclusively in plants but in other organisms as well. Concurrently, many of the active compounds in biostimulants which can support plant stress tolerance and productivity in adverse growth conditions are the metabolites or intermediates that may influence the plant's edible parts nutritional quality. Such effects of biostimulants application are not elucidated enough, therefore, we aimed to give an overview of recent advances in the research related to the interplay among abiotic stress, plant response, biostimulants effects and plant‐derived functio...

MEDITERRANEAN CLIMATE AFFECTS THE BIOSYNTHESIS OF SECONDARY METABOLITES IN COMMON MEDICINAL PLANTS

Mediterranean shrub lands and forests have to cope with a combination of several stress factors (e.g. water limitation, high temperature, irradiation, salinity, insects, herbivores etc). A single stress agent causes changes in several parameters but when more than stress factors take place, plant responses in a more complicated way. The ability of most plants to survive and recover from unfavorable environments is attributed to morphological, biochemical and anatomical strategies. The objective of this study is to emphasize the effects of common abiotic stressful factors on the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites in common Mediterranean medicinal plants. A detailed search using four electronic search engines (such as Pubmed, Science Direct, Scopus and Google Scholar) was undertaken with the search terms: drought, temperature, Mediterranean stress, secondary metabolites, medicinal plants and their combinations. Physiological responses involve changes at metabolite alteration and/or accumulation of specific molecules, leading to a particular physiological response. Abiotic stress, especially drought, have impact on the metabolic pathways. The variety of the biosynthesis of chemical compounds depends mostly on the intensity and the duration of the stress impact. Thus, before collecting plant tissue to extract bioactive compounds, the environmental conditions should be considered.

Effect of Abiotic Stresses on Growth And Metabolism of The Plant And Stress Tolerance Mechanism

International Journal for Science and Advance Research In Technology, 2023

Naturally growing plants generally counter with the abiotic stress in form of drought, waterlogging, heat, salinity, heavy metal contamination leading to imperative growth and loss in productivity. The abiotic stresses cause morphological, physiological, and biochemical modifications and alters metabolic activities in plants. Although plants exhibit a general defense externally in form of cuticle and internal defense in form of plant growth regulators, signaling molecules like gasotransmitters, volatile organic compounds, reactive oxygen species scavengers, polyamines, molecular chaperones, phytochromes, and compatible solutes against adverse situations. However, the collaborative arrival of these conditions left no chances of survival and recovery in plants. This review is an attempt to address the responses, defense mechanisms, and plant compounds used to combat abiotic stresses. The effective scientific techniques like calcium signal systems, functional genomics technologies, molecular markers assisted plant breeding, should be given more emphasis to develop stress tolerance in plants.