Recent advances in steroidal saponins biosynthesis and in vitro production

Abstract

Main conclusion Steroidal saponins exhibited numerous pharmacological activities due to the modification of their backbone by different cytochrome P450s (P450) and UDP glycosyltransferases (UGTs). Plant-derived steroidal saponins are not sufficient for utilizing them for commercial purpose so in vitro production of saponin by tissue culture, root culture, embryo culture, etc, is necessary for its large-scale production.Saponin glycosides are the important class of plant secondary metabolites, which consists of either steroidal or terpenoidal backbone. Due to the existence of a wide range of medicinal properties, saponin glycosides are pharmacologically very important. This review is focused on important medicinal properties of steroidal saponin, its occurrence, and biosynthesis. In addition to this, some recently identified plants containing steroidal saponins in different parts were summarized. The high throughput transcriptome sequencing approach elaborates our understanding related to the secondary metabolic pathway and its regulation even in the absence of adequate genomic information of non-model plants. The aim of this review is to encapsulate the information related to applications of steroidal saponin and its biosynthetic enzymes specially P450s and UGTs that are involved at later stage modifications of saponin backbone. Lastly, we discussed the in vitro production of steroidal saponin as the plant-based production of saponin is time-consuming and yield a limited amount of saponins. A large amount of plant material has been used to increase the production of steroidal saponin by employing in vitro culture technique, which has received a lot of attention in past two decades and provides a way to conserve medicinal plants as well as to escape them for being endangered.

Phytochemical Analysis and in Vitro Investigation of Anti-Inflammatory and Xanthine Oxidase Inhibition Potential of Root Extracts of Bryophyllum Pinnatum

“…The presence of the glycosaponins in the plant has indicated that medicinal herb possesses hemolytic activity (Okwu and Okwu, 2004). Scientific studies have shown that saponins exhibit anti-microbial, anti-tussive, immunomodulation and anti-diabetic properties (Upadhyay et al, 2018).…”

Antifungal Properties of Fucus vesiculosus L. Supercritical Fluid Extract Against Fusarium culmorum and Fusarium oxysporum

“…The fungal pathogens are suggested to survive the effect of active compounds (for instance, azole) due to the ability to decrease the accumulation of these compounds by different defense mechanisms [61]. Both Papadopoulou et al [62] and Upadhyay et al [63], indicated the potential antifungal effect of saponins.…”

A Simple and Economic Limewater-based Conversion of Spirostanol Saponins: Using Paridis Rhizoma as a case study

“…Steroidal saponins are classi ed into two subfamilies, spirostanol type saponins and furostanol type saponins [35], there are furostanol and corresponding spirostanol type compounds simultaneously in plants [36], and furostanol saponins can be converted into spirostanol form when catalyzing by furostanol glycoside 26-O-β-glucosidase [37,38].…”