Metabolic engineering and alkaloid producing pathways. Scopolamine as a model case

SI PITTA-ALVAREZ

Alkaloids: Properties, Applications and Pharmacological Effects

Nova Science Publishers

Lugar: New York, USA; Año: 2011; p. 101 - 108

Alkaloids are molecules widely used in medicine. The majority are extracted from plants, although some can be chemically synthesized. Scopolamine is a tropane alkaloid employed in medicine as an anticholinergic, and its properties range from pre-operative medicine to motion sickness. Hairy roots, transformed with Agrobacterium rhizogenes, have been found to be suitable for the production of secondary metabolites, such as scopolamine, because they are stable and highly productive in hormone-free culture conditions. There have been several approaches to increase scopolamine accumulation in hairy root cultures, among them elicitation, the use of plant-growth regulators and the modification of culture conditions. However, metabolic engineering techniques currently represent the most promising strategy to achieve competitive yields   of this alkaloid.