Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Review Article | OPEN ACCESS

Cytochrome P450 from plants: Platforms for valuable phytopharmaceuticals

Nemesio Villa-Ruano¹ , Yesenia Pacheco-Hernandez², Edmundo Lozoya-Gloria³, Carlos Jonathan Castro-Juarez¹, Clemente Mosso-Gonzalez¹, Sergio Alberto Ramirez-Garcia¹

¹Universidad de la Sierra Sur. Guillermo Rojas Mijangos S/N, C.P. 70805, Ciudad Universitaria, Miahuatlán de Porfirio Díaz; ²Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigación para el Desarrollo Integral Regional–Unidad Oaxaca. Hornos 1003, Col. Noche Buena, C.P. 71230 Sta. Cruz Xoxocotlán, Oaxaca; ³Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del I.P.N. Km 9.6, Libramiento Norte Carretera Irapuato-León, C.P. 36821, Irapuato, Gto., México.

For correspondence:- Nemesio Villa-Ruano Email: necho82@yahoo.com.mx

Received: 14 December 2014 Accepted: 16 March 2015 Published: 26 April 2015

Citation: Villa-Ruano N, Pacheco-Hernandez Y, Lozoya-Gloria E, Castro-Juarez CJ, Mosso-Gonzalez C, Ramirez-Garcia SA. Cytochrome P450 from plants: Platforms for valuable phytopharmaceuticals. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(4):731-742 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i4.24

© 2015 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Cytochrome P450 enzymes are important for biotechnology due to their capacity to modify diverse secondary metabolites that may produce chemicals with pharmacological properties. Most terpenes, flavonoids and alkaloids require P450 catalytic functions to reach their biological activity. In the last ten years, several efforts have focused on the expression and production of these three main types of secondary metabolites in engineered microorganisms and plants using P450 of ethnobotanical origin. Despite this, several P450 coding sequences from plant sources are discovered yearly but only a few have been screened by functional genomics. Amongst them, only a few have shown potentials for use in sustainable production of novel drugs and highly valuable products. Cytochrome P450 involvement in the biosynthesis of these products is discussed in this work.

Keywords: Biotechnological platforms, Cytochrome P450, Phytopharmaceuticals, Yield improvement, Terpenes, Flavonoids, Alkaloids, Microbial expression