Engineering high yields of secondary metabolites in Rubia cell cultures through transformation with rol genes

Among the different methods currently used to improve yields of secondary metabolites in cultured plant cells, the method involving transformation by rol genes represents an example of relatively new technology. These genes, isolated from plasmids of the plant pathogen Agrobacterium rhizogenes, are potential activators of secondary metabolism in transformed cells from the Solanaceae, Araliaceae, Rubiaceae, Vitaceae, and Rosaceae families. In some cases, the activator effect of individual rol genes was sufficient to overcome the inability of cultured plant cells to produce large amounts of secondary metabolites. Stimulation of production characteristics of cultured plant cells mediated by the rol genes was shown to be remarkably stable over long-term cultivation. In this chapter, we describe transformation of Rubia cordifolia L. cells with the rol genes as an example of metabolic engineering of secondary metabolites.