Biotechnological Approaches for Tropane Alkaloids Production

The secondary metabolism of higher plants produces a wide variety of products which are an important source of biomolecules used in the food and pharmaceutical industries. The alkaloids are the most important secondary metabolites by their diversity. There are several groups of alkaloids, including the group of tropane alkaloids. Biotechnology constitutes an uninteresting alternative to the traditional production of tropane alkaloids which is carried out by crops where yields fluctuate under environmental hazards. Biotechnological production is possible thanks to the different optimization strategies used in tissue culture. This chapter is a summary of the essential of these strategies namely: the use of hairy root, elicitation,cell permeabilization, precursor feeding and culture medium optimization.