[Increasing the production of valuable phytopharmaceutical compounds by chromosome manipulation: perspectives and techniques of induction and selection of polyploidy plants]

Polyploidy is one of the widespread phenomena in plant kingdom, which has a vital role in evolution and speciation of plants and is usually accompanied by significant changes in morphology, cell and organ size, expression patterns of genes, respiration and phtotosynthesis, regeneration ability, fertility, biochemistry and metabolom of plants. Therefore polyploidy, especially tetraploidy, has been widely applied in modification of various characteristics of plants. The diversity of traits resulted by the induction of polyploidy, depends on the genotype and species and therefore is not always useful. Though tetraploidy usually results in fewer seeds and decrease of fertility but in cases where the increase in biomass or concentration of medicinal compounds is of importance, it can be efficiently applied for breeding of medicinal plants. Autotetraploidy doubles the gene dosage and allotetraploidy collects the useful allels of a biosynthetis pathway in a resulted hybrid and therefore may improve the production of secondary metabolites. According to the importance of herbal medicine and increasing demand for medicinally important secondary metabolites in our country, we describe the effects of polyploidy on various characteristics of medicinal plants and the methods of induction and selection of polyploid plants in this

[Increasing the conversion of hyoscyamine to scopolamine in stable autotetraploid plants of Egyptian henbane [hyoscyamus muticus]]

Ploidy manipulation is always accompanied by conspicuous changes in morphology and biochemical characteristics in plants. So that it is suggested as a rapid and useful strategy for breeding the quality and quantitative traits related to the secondary metabolite production in medicinal plants. Egyptian henbane is one of the most important sources of tropane alkaloids specially hyoscyamine and a trace of scopolamine. The main objects of this research were study of the stability of ploidy manipulation and its effects on the qualitative and quantitative changes of tropane alkaloid production in Hyoscyamus muticus plant. The stability of ploidy level in autotetraploid plants [that already obtained by colchicine treatment] of Egyptian henbane was investigated by morphological, microscopic and flow cytometry methods. The changes in the production of tropane alkaloid compounds were also analyzed by GC-MS in diploid and tetraploid plants. The results of morphologic, microscopic and flow cytometry methods confirmed the stability of autotetraploidy in Egyptian henbane plant. Tetraploid plants showed a higher potential in production of scopolamine, than diploid ones. Regard to the higher commercial value of scopolamine than other tropane alkaloid coumpounds, Ploidy manipulation can efficiently be used to improve scopolamine production in Hyoscyamus muticus plant

Application of conventional and new biotechnological approaches for improving of morphinane alkaloids production

More than 12,000 alkaloids are known in plants, mostly used as medicine with a world market value of about 4 billion US$. Opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, is the most important economic source of morphinane alkaloids such as morphine, codeine, thebaine, narcotine and papaverine that are exploited by the pharmaceutical industry as analgesics, antitussives and anti-spasmodics. With regard to increasing demand for these compounds, the aim of this review is presenting an outlook of classical breeding programs that successfully applied for enhancing the alkaloid content of opium poppy. The latest biotechnological approaches also are discussed to give an outlook for future trends and possibilities

[Review on new techniques in tropane alkaloids production]

Increasing from day to day tendency of human societies to plant based drug usage increased demand of secondary metabolite application. Although artificial production of these compounds greatly progressed, but the only way to achieve these fine medicinal compounds has been to extract them from plant resources. Alkaloid field, although very old, is still in its infancy with regard to being fully understood, and biotechnologically exploited. Up to now, approximately 5000 different alkaloids, in 15% of plants that belong to 150 families, have been recognized, that tropane alkaloids such as hyosyamine, scopolamine, atropine and cocaine, with a broad medical usage are a class of them. Industrial tropane alkaloid production by modern techniques such as cell and tissue culture, somatic hybridization, metabolic engineering and commercial large scale culture, is highly concerned nowadays and in this review, the authors have tried to point out some of the results obtained by application of these techniques