Advances in Plant Physiology, Biochemistry, and Biotechnology for Natural Product Synthesis

Dear Colleagues,

The plant kingdom represents an immense reservoir of pharmacologically active compounds. Plants produce a broad array of secondary metabolites, and plant-derived compounds have been of human interest for centuries as flavours, fragrances, dyes, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals. They can be utilized—either in their original or semi-synthetic states. Presently, these natural products are mainly extracted from wild or cultivated plants in order to supply phytomolecules on demand. However, due to climate change, numerous environmental factors like drought, salinity, temperature, and heavy metals now affect the physiology and biochemistry of plants, eventually impeding the biosynthesis of their secondary metabolites. The biotechnological approach, centred upon utilizing plant cell cultures as green factories, is an attractive alternative. However, the lack of understanding of the biosynthetic pathways of many secondary metabolites limits the upscaling of their production at the cellular level. Recent advances in plant genomics and metabolite profiling offer tremendous prospects for exploring the complex biosynthesis of natural products to enhance their production and also produce value-added compounds. Additionally, utilizing combinatorial tools can also open the possibility of synthesizing rare and expensive natural products and generating entirely new compounds.

This Special Issue intends to emphasize recent research advances related to the production of secondary metabolites from medicinal plants. Specifically, this Issue will present studies dealing with physiological and biochemical changes of the medicinal plants under conditions of abiotic stress, various biotechnological approaches to enhancing the production of natural products. We welcome authors to submit original research articles, reviews, and short communications.

Dr. Farzana Sabir
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• medicinal plants
• natural products
• phytomedicine