Adventitious and Hairy-Roots Cultures as Lignan Plant Factories.

Plants synthesize specific secondary metabolites for survival, reproduction, environmental resilience, and defense. Among them, lignans are a class of polyphenols with several bioactive properties: chemopreventive, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and antioxidant. These compounds are often extracted from field-grown plants with very low yields.

Optimized Ultrasound-Assisted Extraction of Lignans from Species with Green Solvents.

Lignans are plant phenols derived from phenylpropanoids. They play a significant role in plant defense and have features that make them appealing for pharmaceutical applications. Lignans can be obtained by plant in vitro cultures; their production by adventitious and hairy roots of species seems to be a promising alternative to chemical synthesis.

New Insight into Justicidin B Pathway and Production in .

Lignans are the main secondary metabolites synthetized by species as plant defense compounds but they are also valuable for human health, in particular, for novel therapeutics. In this work, in vitro cultures, cells (Cc), adventitious roots (ARc) and hairy roots (HRc) were developed for the production of justicidin B through elicitation with methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and coronatine (COR). The performances of the cultures were evaluated for their stability, total phenols content and antioxidant ability.

Genes and genome editing tools for breeding desirable phenotypes in ornamentals.

We review the main genes underlying commercial traits in cut flower species and critically discuss the possibility to apply genome editing approaches to produce novel variation and phenotypes. Promoting flowering and flower longevity as well as creating novelty in flower structure, colour range and fragrances are major objectives of ornamental plant breeding. The novel genome editing techniques add new possibilities to study gene function and breed new varieties.