Plants are a rich source of valuable secondary metabolites and in the recent years plant cell, tissue and organ cultures have been developed as an important alternative sources for the production of these compounds. Adventitious roots have been successfully induced in many plant species and cultured for the production of high value secondary metabolites of pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and industrial importance. Adoption of elicitation methods have shown improved synthesis of secondary metabolites in adventitious root cultures. Development of large-scale culture methods using bioreactors has opened up feasibilities of production of secondary metabolites at the industrial levels. In the present review we summarize the progress made in recent past in the area of adventitious root cultures for the production of secondary metabolites.
Bioreactors ; Biotechnology ; methods ; Cell Culture Techniques ; methods ; Plant Development ; Plant Roots ; growth & development ; Plants ; metabolism

Korean ginseng and mountain ginseng (Panax ginseng CA Meyer) are important traditional herbal plants whose ginsenosides are generally accepted as serving to improve sexual functions, such as penile erection. We investigated the effects of tissue-cultured mountain ginseng extract (TMGE) on male patients with erectile dysfunction (ED). A double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted with 143 patients experiencing ED. Over the course of 8 weeks, one group took 1 000 mg of TMGE twice a day, and the other group took 1,000 mg of placebo twice a day. The effects of the TMGE and the placebo were analyzed using the Korean version of the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) questionnaire. A total of 86 patients completed 8 weeks of treatment. The scores on the five domains of the IIEF after medication were significantly higher than the baseline scores in the group treated with TMGE (P<0.05), whereas no significant improvement was observed in the placebo group (P>0.05). Erectile function and overall satisfaction scores after medication were significantly higher in the TMGE group than in the placebo group (P<0.05). Erectile function of patients in the TMGE-treated group significantly improved, suggesting that TMGE could be utilized for improving erectile function in male patients.
Adult ; Aged ; Bioreactors ; Erectile Dysfunction ; drug therapy ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Panax ; growth & development ; Patient Dropouts ; Patient Satisfaction ; Phytotherapy ; methods ; Plant Extracts ; therapeutic use ; Plant Roots ; cytology ; growth & development ; Treatment Outcome

The usage of wild ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer) has been limited due to short supply and high price. Therefore, sufficient production as well as efficient extraction of mountain ginseng are required for the development as products. In this study, wild ginseng adventitious root cultures were prepared for efficient production with advantages of fast growth and stable production. Treatment of methyl jasmonate (MJ) to wild ginseng adventitious root cultures increased the extraction yield and antioxidative activity. Further investigation on effect of extraction conditions suggested the importance of ethanol concentration on antioxidative activity and extraction yield of MJ-treated wild ginseng adventitious root cultures. Optimized extraction condition of MJ-treated wild ginseng adventitious root cultures for maximum extraction yield and antioxidative activity was determined using response surface methodology with three-level-three-factor Box-Behnken design (BBD). Extraction of 1 g MJ-treated wild ginseng adventitious root culture with 30 ml of 9% ethanol at 30 ℃ produced 310.2 mg extract with 71.0% antioxidative activity at 100 µg/ml. Taken together, MJ-treated wild ginseng adventitious root culture is valuable source for wild ginseng usage and optimized extraction condition can be used for the development of functional products or folk remedies.
Ethanol ; Medicine, Traditional ; Panax

The eleven isolates were isolated from the roots of Cymbidium goeriingii inhabited in the island of Cheju and from Cypripeium calceolus inhabited in the mountains around ChungPuk. The isolates were inoculated to the plantlets of commercial orchids and evaluated to be symbiotic with the orchids. Also, their genomic DNA was extracted from the cultures on the agars and reacted with the primers selected, understanding their biological relations with the pathogenic fungi. Out of eleven isolates, three were observed to stimulate the growth of the orchid plantlets and to be biologically related to the orchid symbiotic fungi, as based on the analyses of PCR-RAPD. Otherwise, the others were observed to decline the growth of orchid plantlet, compared with those of control, and to be grouped with the pathogenic. As based on the results of this work, the roots of C. goeriingii were found to be frequently infected with the pathogenic fungus rather than with symbiotic fungus in natural systems. Further, the infection of the commercial orchid with the pathogens was believed to be abundant without any inoculation of symbiotic fungus under the conditions of greenhouse.
Agar ; DNA ; Fungi* ; Jeju-do* ; Mycorrhizae ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Rhizoctonia ; Symbiosis

Two fungal isolates obtained from roots of Cymbidium goeriingii in Jeju island were confirmed to be symbiotic with orchid plantlets, and were compared with other orchid mycorrhizal (OM) fungi previously isolated. The two isolates differed in their peloton structures formed in the roots of Cymbidium kanran hybrid 'Chungsu' and in responses of orchid plant. These two isolates differed from the additionally tested OM fungi in some features, and from root damaging species of Rhizoctonia and Fusarium as based on cluster analysis after PCR-RAPD with the primers, Bioneer-28 and OPO-2. With this simple and fast technique, it was possible to distinguish OM fungi from the plant root pathogenic fungi based on calculation of their polymorphic bands. This technique can therefore be helpful to distinguish the OM fungi from the root pathogens. Particularly, the new isolates are considered as new resource of symbiotic fungi for horticultural industries.
Fungi* ; Fusarium ; Mycorrhizae ; Plant Roots ; Plants ; Rhizoctonia