Echinacea biotechnology: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Echinacea, better known as purple coneflower, has received a global attention because of its increasing medicinal value. There is enormous potential for the discovery of new medicinal compounds in this species and an immediate need for techniques to facilitate the production of high quality, chemically consistent plant material for drug development and clinical trials. In vitro tissue culture of Echinacea can play a vital role in the development of novel germplasm, rapid multiplication, and genetic modifications for an enhanced phytochemical production. Recent establishment of liquid culture techniques, large-scale bioreactors, and Agrobacterium-mediated transformation are changing the production parameters of the Echinacea species. This review provides an overview of the recent developments in in vitro technologies and challenges that remain in the Echinacea biotechnology.

In vitro regeneration, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, and genetic assay of chalcone synthase in the medicinal plant Echinacea pallida

“…Furthermore, HPLC analysis coupled with mass spectrometry identification revealed that two CADs, cichoric acid and caftaric acid, were increased in leaves and roots of CHS transformants, respectively, whilst the amount of echinacoside in roots of transgenic plants was decreased. There are relatively few studies of genetically engineered Echinacea (Abbasi et al 2007a). To our best knowledge, this is the first report regarding metabolic engineering in this medicinal plant.…”

Biosafety and Toxicological Evaluation of Tissue-Cultured Echinacea purpurea Adventitious Roots

“…Furthermore, field cultivation affords a low yield and poor quality of raw material because of diseases that affect the plant and the natural variation in chemical composition caused by seasonal changes (Abbasi et al, 2007). However, in vitro culture techniques are proving very valuable for meeting the increasing demand of the pharmaceutical and food industries (Abbasi et al, 2007). Wu et al (2007) produced adventitious root biomass of Echinacea purpurea through in vitro methods using commercial-scale bioreactors.…”

The quantity of biologically active substances in purple coneflower as influenced by the preparation methods and drying technologies

“…Purple coneflower was brought to Europe at the end of the 17 th century and has been grown in Lithuania since the 1960s (Dambrauskienė, 2006). The total area of the world's industrially grown purple coneflower fields comprises a few thousand hectares (Abbasi et al, 2007). There are no natural purple coneflower growing places in Lithuania.…”

“…All above-ground and underground parts of the plant are used as medicinal raw material. Literary sources indicate that purple coneflower accumulates up to 216 different components of biologically active substances (Murch et al, 2006;Abbasi et al, 2007). The most…”

“…The purple coneflower grown in Lithuania is characterised by a generous amount of chicoric acid, its amount in plants could reach up to 4.72% (Raila et al, 2014). More than 70 different purple coneflower preparations are produced in Europe for the prevention or treatment of various allergic, autoimmune and cancerous diseases (Dambrauskienė, 2006;Abbasi et al, 2007;Lin et al, 2011). After harvesting, purple coneflower as well as other herbaceous medicinal plants is characterized by a high moisture content, which can be higher than 80% (Lin et al, 2011;Zvicevičius et al, 2013).…”