Biotechnological vistas in medicinal plants-A way forward

The major challenges in the field of medicinal plants are conservation of rare, endangered and threatened (RET) species and enhancement of secondary metabolites production by using different technologies right from conventional methods to advanced biotechnological methods in order to produce quality drug so as to meet the current demands of pharmaceutical industries. In this review paper, status of various biotechnological methods viz., cryopreservation, propagation of medicinal plant species, metabolic engineering techniques for identification of key enzymes in pathways of bioactive compounds, transgenic medicinal plants for consistent production of novel metabolites are discussed. Further, functional genomic techniques viz., DNA microarrays for simultaneous analysis of multiple genes, identification of putative micro RNAs, phytoregulation of secondary metabolites via RNA interference and transcriptomics in important medicinal plants are also reviewed.