Plant Tissue Culture and Secondary Metabolites Production, Third Edition

Dear Colleagues,

The journal Plants will jointly be publishing a Special Issue on “Plant Tissue Culture and Secondary Metabolites Production, Third Edition”.

Plant cell tissue and organ culture is an indispensable fundamental technique, complementary to conventional plant breeding, for optimized large-scale clonal propagation, germplasm conservation, somatic embryogenesis, and disease elimination in plantlets. In addition to these applications, this technique has been intensively utilized in recent decades for plants that are important from a phytochemical perspective for the biotechnological delivery of pharmacologically relevant secondary metabolites. The latter is of exceptional importance for species that are threatened in their indigenous habitats. Thus, the use of in vitro culture is a sustainable additive approach to traditional methods of propagation. Furthermore, in vitro culture represents a suitable method for developing the controlled production of valuable natural metabolites in controlled laboratory conditions, without affecting the plants’ natural habitats.

This Special Issue aims to integrate the various aspects of plant cell tissue and organ culture, with a special emphasis on the production of phytochemical compounds, which are valuable due to their therapeutic properties—e.g., antioxidant, antiviral, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory.

Secondary metabolites play a crucial role in the diverse defense mechanisms of the plant organism in response to environmental stimuli, including climatic fluctuations, pathogenic organisms, predatory herbivores, and competing plants. Therefore, by providing the opportunity for controlled modification of environmental conditions, in vitro culture is a well-manageable experimental system that can be utilized as a source of secondary metabolite delivery for industrial applications, as well as for food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical purposes.

This Special Issue will highlight the modern use of various plant cell and organ culture approaches for the successful production of plant secondary metabolites, especially those with high economic value.

Dr. Kalina Danova
Dr. Laura Pistelli
Dr. Ilaria Marchioni
Guest Editors

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). 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.