Biologically Synthesized Nanoparticles for Enhancing Secondary Metabolites in Plant Tissue Cultures

Secondary metabolites (SMs) produced by plants possesses important therapeutic activities which are used to treat various diseases and disorders. However, in natural plants, SMs are synthesized in limited concentration and it varies according to climatic and geographical conditions. Over the years, production of SMs is continuously increasing and to fulfil the market demand, novel techniques are being experimented. Callus cultures, organ cultures, cell suspensions cultures etc., are some biotechnological techniques for producing SMs at optimum concentration. Additionally, biotic and abiotic elicitors have also been proved promising to increase SMs level in in vitro cultures. Among various elicitors, nanoparticles have gained special attention due to their encouraging capacity to enhance SMs with several other benefits. Researchers have been captivated by nanomaterials due to their smaller size, which enables easy penetration and manipulation of the cell's metabolism, resulting in increased production of phytochemicals. Biologically synthesized nanoparticles (Green synthesis) have been investigated in different in vitro cultures to enhance these phyto-compounds level. With this background, in the present chapter, we have thoroughly reviewed recent updates on application of biologically synthesized nanoparticles to enhance SMs using in vitro cultures of important medicinal plants.