RESUMO
Plants are the sources of many bioactive secondary metabolites which are present in plant organs including leaves, stems, roots, and flowers. Although they provide advantages to the plants in many cases, they are not necessary for metabolisms related to growth, development, and reproduction. They are specific to plant species and are precursor substances, which can be modified for generations of various compounds in different plant species. Secondary metabolites are used in many industries, including dye, food processing and cosmetic industries, and in agricultural control as well as being used as pharmaceutical raw materials by humans. For this reason, the demand is high; therefore, they are needed to be obtained in large volumes and the large productions can be achieved using biotechnological methods in addition to production, being done with classical methods. For this, plant biotechnology can be put in action through using different methods. The most important of these methods include tissue culture and gene transfer. The genetically modified plants are agriculturally more productive and are commercially more effective and are valuable tools for industrial and medical purposes as well as being the sources of many secondary metabolites of therapeutic importance. With plant tissue culture applications, which are also the first step in obtaining transgenic plants with having desirable characteristics, it is possible to produce specific secondary metabolites in large-scale through using whole plants or using specific tissues of these plants in laboratory conditions. Currently, many studies are going on this subject, and some of them receiving attention are found to be taken place in plant biotechnology and having promising applications. In this work, particularly benefits of secondary metabolites, and their productions through tissue culture-based biotechnological applications are discussed using literature with presence of current studies.
RESUMO
The gene (vgb) encoding Vitreoscilla (bacterial) hemoglobin (VHb) was electroporated into Gordonia amarae, where it was stably maintained, and expressed at about 4 nmol VHb g(-1) of cells. The maximum cell mass (OD(600)) of vgb-bearing G. amarae was greater than that of untransformed G. amarae for a variety of media and aeration conditions (2.8-fold under normal aeration and 3.4-fold under limited aeration in rich medium, and 3.5-fold under normal aeration and 3.2-fold under limited aeration in mineral salts medium). The maximum level of trehalose lipid from cultures grown in rich medium plus hexadecane was also increased for the recombinant strain, by 4.0-fold in broth and 1.8-fold in cells under normal aeration and 2.1-fold in broth and 1.4-fold in cells under limited aeration. Maximum overall biosurfactant production was also increased in the engineered strain, by 1.4-fold and 2.4-fold for limited and normal aeration, respectively. The engineered strain may be an improved source for producing purified biosurfactant or an aid to microorganisms bioremediating sparingly soluble contaminants in situ.
