Biotechnological Production of Antistress Compounds: Current Status and Future Prospects

Stress and stress-related disorders are a major cause of diseases in modern times and contribute to around 75% of all illness. Recently antistress compounds (adaptogens) from plants have been gaining increasing attention due to their ability to attenuate stress effects. They regulate the immune response and the hormonal changes due to stress, thereby maintaining homeostasis. In the present review, some of the active constituents of adaptogenic plants, such as phenylpropanoid derivatives (rosin, rosavin, syringin, triandrin; salidroside, tyrosol), tetracyclic triterpenes (gingenosides, sitoindosides), and lignans (eleutherosides, schisandrin B), are discussed. Increasing demand for antistress compounds and their limited availability from natural resources due to overexploitation has necessitated their biotechnological production as an attractive alternative. This review summarizes various biotechnological approaches such as optimization of tissue culture conditions, elicitation, Agrobacterium-mediated transformation, and metabolic engineering using microbial systems for production of antistress compounds. Bioreactor cultures and various parameters that would enhance the biomass and accumulation of some antistress compounds are thoroughly discussed. Future research should focus on the identification of additional functional enzymes that are involved in their biosynthesis as well as product scale-up of antistress compounds for industrial applications.