New Biotechnologies tool in Herbal Drug Research

Arvind Kumar, Balkrishna Acharya,and Upadhyay A. K

Department of Ayurved Research & Development, Divya Yog Mandir Trust (SIRO), Office: Patanjali Yogpeeth, Maharishi Dayanand Gram, Delhi Haridwar National Highway, Near Bahadrabad, Haridwar-249402, Uttarakhand, INDIA

arv1069@rediffmail.com

Abstract
Natural products are among the largest and most diverse groups of plant secondary metabolites. Due to heavy demand of natural products many medicinal plant species are presently endangered and their use is prohibited .The application of biotechnological tools can help to protect the endangered species by understanding the molecular mechanisms of the synthesis of therapeutically active principles of medicinal plants. Conventional strategies for expression profiling are optimized for single gene analysis but SOLiD System has the potential to deliver real breakthroughs in any application of sequencing aimed at understanding biological functions in complex genomes. We proposed to use ‘Supported Oligo Ligation Detection’ to identify the responsible gene responsible for active compound synthesis in endangered medicinal plants. Once the responsible gene is evaluated using SOLiD, the phylogenetic reconstruction studies are primarily done by inserting the basic gene responsible for active compounds synthesis into a specific vector to produce a recombinant system. This recombinant system is inserted into host system for development of transgenic plants that will secure the overproduction of active compounds synthesis. Other major practical applicability of research is pharmacodynamics, pharmacogenomics, toxicogenomics and quality control of herbal drugs and extracts.