Current Elicitation Strategies for Improving Secondary Metabolites in Medicinal Plants with Antiallergy Properties

In recent decades, there has been a substantial surge in the occurrence of allergic conditions such as rhinitis, asthma, food allergies, and atopic dermatitis. To address these allergic conditions, a wide range of medications are available such as antihistamines, mast cell stabilizers, leukotriene receptor antagonists, and corticosteroids. However, these medications remain incurable and often result in adverse side effects. As a result, consumers often opt for safe and economically friendly alternative remedies such as natural compounds from plant sources. Therefore, there is a quest to discover promising medicinal plants as future prospects in the production of novel antiallergic agents that have a promising modulating effect to cure allergies. Bioprospecting of medicinal plants for pharmaceutically important compounds poses chances to reduce their availability in natural conditions imposing a threat to its survival. Alternatively, an in vitro cell culture system serves as an effective technique for the de novo synthesis of industrially significant bioactive compounds. Additionally, several other techniques such as elicitation and metabolic engineering can enhance the yield of metabolites in specific biomass, meeting global demand. Elicitation is a phenomenon that triggers the accumulation of bioactive compounds in calli and cell cultures through physical, chemical, and biological factors. Hence, this chapter delves into the exploration of the elicitation strategies to ameliorate the production of secondary metabolites in some important antiallergic medicinal plants.