Compounds from medicinal plants produced in hairy root and transgenic hairy root cultures: a review.

Background: Plants produce a wide variety of molecules, and some of them are of medicinal importance. Biotechnological systems such as suspended cells and hairy roots (HR) are used to produce plant compounds in a stable and controlled manner. HRs are obtained through a genetic transformation mediated by Methodology: A broad bibliographic search was accomplished of articles that report the HR cultures to produce bioactive compounds of medicinal plants. To find the largest number of reports in the past fourteen years, different databases for web searchers, such as Scopus, PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science, Redalyc, and SciELO were used. The reports mentioned here were collected and selected to include those that were of great relevance. Results: One hundred and twelve research articles were selected to integrate this review. We highlight the principal advantages of hairy root cultures to produce secondary metabolites which are used as medicinal compounds. Hairy root cultures can produce a wide variety of organo-specific compounds, including Conclusions: Different plant species have successfully produced HR. The root cells in HR cultures have a complicated endomembrane system that facilitates the production of a wide variety of bioactive molecules of the secondary metabolism, such as phenols, terpenes, and alkaloids. Due to the random insertion of the pRI