Production of Nutraceuticals Using Plant Cell and Tissue Culture

Nutraceuticals are mostly referred as functional foods that provide health benefits reducing the risk of chronic diseases. To avoid the side effects of medicines, nutraceuticals have lots of advantages over medicines. Based on their natural sources, most of the nutraceuticals are categorized as nutrients, herbals, dietary supplements, or dietary fiber, etc. Especially, plants play prominent roles as nutraceuticals. They are rich in phytochemicals that are gaining more attention among the growing populations. Plants are ecofriendly promising affordability, accessibility, and efficiency comparable to high-cost synthetic drug agents. Plants have the heterogeneous group of natural metabolic products used as nutraceuticals. These natural compounds are named as secondary metabolites that are not essential for the growth and development that are also divergent in their structure and metabolic pathways. Secondary metabolites mainly function as a signaling molecules or defense agents that are classified as steroids, saponin, terpenes, lipids, alkaloids, terpenoids, and enzyme cofactors. Diverse types of secondary metabolites are produced by using plant tissue culture such as in vitro callus and cell suspension. Present chapter focuses on the production and/or extraction of these compounds, even at elevated levels using elicitors, from in vitro-derived plantlets.