Article
Plant Sciences
Minsol Choi, Jiwon Yoon, So Hwi Yang, Jae Kwang Kim, Sang Un Park
Summary: In this study, the optimal conditions for the hairy root culture of Salvia plebeia were determined, and its growth and accumulation of phenolic compounds were evaluated. The results showed that hairy roots cultured under optimal conditions exhibited enhanced phenolic compound accumulation and antioxidant activity, making them potential sources of antioxidants.
Review
Plant Sciences
Kevin J. Morey, Christie A. M. Peebles
Summary: While plants are a valuable source of natural products, their commercial application faces challenges. Hairy root cultures provide a potential production platform for non-agricultural plants, with advancements in metabolic engineering, synthetic biology tools, and bioreactor technology enabling commercial application.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Diksha Bagal, Aksar Ali Chowdhary, Shakti Mehrotra, Sonal Mishra, Sonica Rathore, Vikas Srivastava
Summary: Plants are important sources of secondary metabolites, but natural plant populations cannot meet the commercial demand due to low accumulation volume. Hairy root cultures induced by plant interaction with Rhizobium rhizogenes are a practical solution for producing valuable secondary metabolites at low cost and without seasonal variations. Metabolic engineering in hairy roots, including overexpression and silencing of genes and transcription factor overexpression, can enhance metabolite production. This review focuses on alkaloids and discusses future prospects for meeting production demands through metabolic engineering in hairy roots.
PLANT PHYSIOLOGY AND BIOCHEMISTRY
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Hyeon Ji Yeo, Min Jae Kwon, Sang Yeon Han, Jae Cheol Jeong, Cha Young Kim, Sang Un Park, Chang Ha Park
Summary: Agastache rugosa, also known as Korean mint, is a perennial aromatic medicinal plant that contains various phenolic compounds with pharmacological and physiological activities, including antioxidant, anticancer, antiviral, antifungal, and antibacterial properties.
Review
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Hyun Gyu Hwang, Dae-Yeol Ye, Gyoo Yeol Jung
Summary: Genetically encoded biosensors have been developed to efficiently screen enzymes with desired phenotypes, expanding enzyme discovery and engineering strategies.
BIOTECHNOLOGY ADVANCES
(2023)
Review
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Hasnat Tariq, Saaim Asif, Anisa Andleeb, Christophe Hano, Bilal Haider Abbasi
Summary: Flavonoids, a heterogeneous family of plant polyphenolic compounds, have significant bioactivity in anti-cancer, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-microbial activities. However, traditional approaches for their production have limitations. Genetic engineering tools offer promise for exploring and scaling up production of flavonoids by modifying biosynthetic pathways in plants and microbes.
Review
Plant Sciences
Diptesh Biswas, Avijit Chakraborty, Swapna Mukherjee, Biswajit Ghosh
Summary: This study highlights the importance of hairy roots in the production of secondary metabolites in Solanaceous plants. It provides an overview of modern biotechnological techniques used to enhance the production of these metabolites in hairy root cultures.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Seungeun Baek, Jong-Eun Han, Thanh-Tam Ho, So-Young Park
Summary: This study tested the efficiency of hairy root induction in Centella asiatica using leaf and petiole explants. The results showed that petiole-derived hairy roots had the highest growth index and triterpenoid concentration. The findings suggest that hairy root culture of C. asiatica can be scaled up for mass production of triterpenoids.
Review
Plant Sciences
Savio S. Ferreira, Mauricio S. Antunes
Summary: Efforts to manipulate the biosynthesis of phenylpropanoids for various applications have faced challenges such as pathway complexity and metabolic burden. The use of biosensors and genetic circuits could be a promising approach to dynamically regulate the metabolic status of the pathway and enhance the development of phenylpropanoid-producing plant biofactories in plant synthetic biology.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Kam Sang Kwok, Yi Zuo, Soo Jin Choi, Gayatri J. Pahapale, Luo Gu, David H. Gracias
Summary: Lithographic nanopatterning techniques have been widely used in electronics and optics, but their application in nanobio interfaces is limited by cytotoxicity and 2D features. This article presents a biocompatible and cost-effective transfer process using nanoimprint lithography and alginate hydrogel to create flexible and degradable transfer layers. Biotransfer printing of the nanopattern arrays on live cells and animal brains demonstrates high pattern fidelity and cell viability. This method has great potential in advancing bionics, biosensing, and biohybrid tissue interfaces.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Ahmad Nasiri, Sajad Rashidi-Monfared, Amin Ebrahimi, Nargues Falahi Charkhabi, Ahmad Moieni
Summary: In this study, the overexpression of delta(24)-reductase in hairy roots of Fenugreek resulted in a significant increase in diosgenin content, indicating the importance of this gene in the biosynthesis pathway.
Article
Plant Sciences
Xiao Hua Li, Jae Kwang Kim, Sang Un Park
Summary: Astragalus membranaceus has long been used as a popular Chinese herbal medicine. This study investigated the regulatory effect of transcription factors MYB12, PAP1, and LC on the synthesis of astragaloside metabolites in A. membranaceus. Overexpression of these transcription factors differentially up-regulated the active compounds in the plant, leading to increased biosynthesis of astragalosides.
Article
Plant Sciences
Doai Van Nguyen, Trang Thi-Huyen Hoang, Ngoc Thu Le, Huyen Thi Tran, Cuong Xuan Nguyen, Yong-Hwan Moon, Ha Hoang Chu, Phat Tien Do
Summary: Hairy root induction system is a fast-growing and genetically stable method used for studying gene expression and function in various plant species. In this study, the Rhizobium rhizogenes mediated hairy root induction was optimized to provide an effective tool for gene editing in cucumber.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2022)
Review
Plant Sciences
Ajay G. Namdeo, Deepa K. Ingawale
Summary: The review highlights the research progress on various biotechnological aspects of Withania somnifera and provides up-to-date information on in-vitro propagation and production of withanolides.
JOURNAL OF ETHNOPHARMACOLOGY
(2021)
Review
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Christopher J. Hartline, Alexander C. Schmitz, Yichao Han, Fuzhong Zhang
Summary: Metabolic engineering enables the production of valuable chemicals using microbial organisms, with dynamic metabolic engineering allowing cells to autonomously adjust flux in response to their metabolic state. The review discusses theoretical works, molecular mechanisms, and applications of dynamic control systems in improving metrics in metabolic engineering.
METABOLIC ENGINEERING
(2021)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Diego Hidalgo Martinez, Nico Betterle, Anastasios Melis
Summary: In this study, the authors revealed new properties of CpcB*P fusion constructs, elucidated the configuration and function of the fusion constructs, and showed examples of overexpressed enzymes in the fusion construct. These findings are significant for the rational design of fusion constructs harboring multiple expressed proteins.
ACS SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Miguel Angel Alcalde, Maren Muller, Sergi Munne-Bosch, Mariana Landin, Pedro Pablo Gallego, Mercedes Bonfill, Javier Palazon, Diego Hidalgo-Martinez
Summary: Through the study of C. asiatica hairy root cultures, we established the links between the expressions of rol and aux genes and morphological traits, hormone profile, and centelloside production. We found that abscisic acid (ABA) and cytokinin isopentenyl adenosine (IPA) play critical roles in defining the morphological traits and centelloside content.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Yesenia Pacheco-Hernandez, Diego Hidalgo-Martinez, Gerardo Zepeda-Vallejo, Yair Cruz-Narvaez, Rosa Lilia Escobar-Garcia, Elvia Becerra-Martinez, Nemesio Villa-Ruano
Summary: Celery undergoes metabolic changes when infected by Fusarium oxysporum, resulting in a decrease in the levels of free sugars, amino acids, nucleosides, and organic acids. However, levels of tyrosine and tryptophan increase, suggesting their involvement in the chemical defense of celery against fungal colonization.
CHEMISTRY & BIODIVERSITY
(2022)
Review
Plant Sciences
Edgar Perez-Matas, Diego Hidalgo-Martinez, Ainoa Escrich, Miguel Angel Alcalde, Elisabeth Moyano, Mercedes Bonfill, Javier Palazon
Summary: Paclitaxel and its derivatives are widely used chemotherapeutic agents for cancer treatment, but their production remains challenging due to scarcity. This review discusses the progress in improving taxane production through genetic engineering techniques, including the overexpression of limiting genes and transcription factors in Taxus spp. cells and transformed roots, as well as attempts to produce taxanes in heterologous organisms. However, the transfer of the complete PTX metabolic route has not been achieved yet, and taxane biosynthesis is still restricted to Taxus cells and some endophytic fungi.
FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Diego Hidalgo Martinez, Anastasios Melis
Summary: Recent research has shown that exogenous genes from plants, humans, and bacteria can be stably over-expressed in cyanobacteria by forming functional heterohexameric structures with the CpcA alpha-subunit of phycocyanin and the 28.9 kDa phycocyanin disc linker polypeptide CpcG1. The study suggests that cyanobacteria tolerate the presence of heterologous recombinant proteins when they are fused with essential cellular proteins, such as phycocyanin, allowing for substantial and stable accumulation.
METABOLIC ENGINEERING
(2023)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Ainoa Escrich, Diego Hidalgo, Mercedes Bonfill, Javier Palazon, Raul Sanchez-Munoz, Elisabeth Moyano
Summary: Novel approaches to optimize the production of plant specialized metabolites are crucial to reach maximum productivity of plant biofactories. Plant polyploidization frequently enhances protein synthesis and thereby increases the biosynthesis of specialized metabolites. By treating immature embryos of Taxus baccata with colchicine, polyploid cell lines were successfully induced, which showed higher taxane pathway gene expression and 6.2-fold higher taxane production compared to diploid cells. This finding is a step forward towards developing a sustainable production system for the anticancer drug paclitaxel.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Edgar Perez-Matas, Pascual Garcia-Perez, Mercedes Bonfill, Luigi Lucini, Diego Hidalgo-Martinez, Javier Palazon
Summary: Elicited cell cultures of Taxus spp. are sustainable biotechnological production systems of the anticancer drug paclitaxel. This study investigates the impact of elicitation on the synthesis of other bioactive compounds and reveals the differential effects of elicitors on cell growth and phenolic biosynthesis in Taxus baccata cell suspensions. Untargeted metabolomics analysis identifies numerous phenolic compounds and their changes over time, indicating the potential of Taxus ssp. biofactories to supply taxanes and valuable phenolic antioxidants.
Article
Biotechnology & Applied Microbiology
Edgar Perez-Matas, Diego Hidalgo-Martinez, Elisabeth Moyano, Javier Palazon, Mercedes Bonfill
Summary: In this study, the production of paclitaxel was enhanced by overexpressing the bottleneck genes BAPT and DBTNBT in Taxus baccata cells. The transgenic cells showed significantly higher expression of these genes and improved taxane production compared to the wild type. Transcriptional profiling revealed that the GGPPS, TXS, and DBAT genes were most responsive to DBTNBT overexpression and the dual elicitation treatment.
PLANT BIOTECHNOLOGY JOURNAL
(2024)
Article
Plant Sciences
Edgar Perez-Matas, Pascual Garcia-Perez, Begona Miras-Moreno, Luigi Lucini, Mercedes Bonfill, Javier Palazon, Diego Hidalgo-Martinez
Summary: This study investigates the effects of coronatine (COR) and salicylic acid (SA) elicitors on taxane-associated metabolism in Taxus baccata cell cultures. Untargeted metabolomics analysis reveals pleiotropic effects induced by COR and SA, leading to changes in cell growth, taxane content, and secondary metabolism. Metabolite annotation shows significant effects on N-containing compounds, phenylpropanoids, and terpenoids. The highest level of paclitaxel content is observed on day 8 under SA elicitation, negatively correlating with the biomarkers kauralexin A2 and taxusin. This study provides valuable insights into the intricate metabolic changes associated with paclitaxel production.
Article
Plant Sciences
Miguel Angel Alcalde, Javier Palazon, Mercedes Bonfill, Diego Hidalgo-Martinez
Summary: This study explored the effects of overexpressing the squalene synthase (SQS) gene and the transcription factor TSAR2 on various aspects of C. asiatica hairy root lines. The transformed lines showed noticeable alterations in morphological traits and content of centelloside, phytosterol, and squalene. The expression of T-DNA genes modulated the centelloside biosynthesis genes. These findings provide valuable information for the biotechnological application of C. asiatica hairy roots.
Review
Plant Sciences
Anastasios Melis, Diego Alberto Hidalgo Martinez, Nico Betterle
Summary: This review addresses selected aspects of cyanobacterial production and scale-up methods, with a focus on the challenge and promise of specialty chemicals and proteins. The importance of synthetic biology with these microorganisms is also emphasized.
PHOTOSYNTHESIS RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Fabrizio Canfora, Diego Hidalgo, Marcela Lagos, Enzo Meneses, Aldo Vera
Summary: In this manuscript, we discuss a remarkable phenomenon in nonlinear and nonintegrable field theories in (3 thorn 1) dimensions with finite density and nontrivial topological charges and non-Abelian internal symmetries. We construct infinite-dimensional families of analytic solutions with nonvanishing topological charges by suitable Ansatze. These solutions represent topological solitons in (3 thorn 1) dimensions with chiral modes localized at the energy density peaks. We analyze the Yang-Mills-Higgs model, the nonlinear sigma model, and the Skyrme model, and compare the results with instanton-dyon liquid approach and lattice QCD.
