Biotechnological Interventions in Enhancing Secondary Metabolites from Medicinal Plants: A Review

Secondary metabolites isolated from medicinal plants are of immense therapeutic, nutraceutical, and market importance. Unfortunately, natural biosynthesis of these compounds is generally low, dependent on factors that include the environment and physiology. Over the past few years, biotechnological innovation has opened up new and sustainable approaches to meet the requirement for secondary metabolite production in vitro. This review identifies recent biotechnological interventions such as plant tissue culture, elicitation, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology that have been successfully utilized to enhance the biosynthesis of bioactive phytochemicals. An emphasis is given to the mechanisms, benefits, and disadvantages of these strategies, with specific reference to prominent medicinal plant species. Future directions are to interface omics tools with AI-powered metabolic pathway modeling for targeted metabolite improvement.