Specialized Metabolites and Valuable Molecules in Crop and Medicinal Plants: The Evolution of Their Use and Strategies for Their Production

Abstract

Plants naturally produce a terrific diversity of molecules, which we exploit for promoting our overall well-being. Plants are also green factories. Indeed, they may be exploited to biosynthesize bioactive molecules, proteins, carbohydrates and biopolymers for sustainable and large-scale production. These molecules are easily converted into commodities such as pharmaceuticals, antioxidants, food, feed and biofuels for multiple industrial processes. Novel plant biotechnological, genetics and metabolic insights ensure and increase the applicability of plant-derived compounds in several industrial sectors. In particular, synergy between disciplines, including apparently distant ones such as plant physiology, pharmacology, ‘omics sciences, bioinformatics and nanotechnology paves the path to novel applications of the so-called molecular farming. We present an overview of the novel studies recently published regarding these issues in the hope to have brought out all the interesting aspects of these published studies.

RETRACTED: Interaction between zinc and selenium bio-fortification and toxic metals (loid) accumulation in food crops

“…By studying the tolerance mechanism of these plants and the genes involved in it, the information obtained can be used in biofortification topics under the transgenic approach. Bio-enrichment strategy with the aim of identifying genomic regions in medicinal plants can have industrial-pharmaceutical applicability in breeding programs, as well as the importance of flavonoids such as flavonols and anthocyanins due to their biological activity against COVID-19 was noticed ( D’Amelia et al., 2021 ).…”

Triboelectric nanogenerators for smart agriculture

“…In the process of agricultural production activities, the most important thing is to improve the yield of crops, to ensure that agricultural producers can obtain the desired economic benefits through agricultural cultivation 301–303 . Therefore, to promote the continuous breakthrough and development of agriculture, it is necessary to study the existing agricultural production technology and ensure the yield of crops by using high‐yielding crop cultivation technology scientifically and reasonably from the actual situation of agricultural development 304,305 . TENG can also be used as a crop growth promotion technology to promote seed germination and increase crop yield.…”

Effect of herbal compounds on coronavirus; a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Plants have beneficial biomedical effects due to their natural properties [33,42]. Plants are inexpensive and available sources of medicinal compounds that by changing the growth conditions and the effect of various stimulants, the production of medicinal molecules and their effect can be increased several times [3,12,41,43]. The antiviral effects of many plants have been proven.…”