Spices Biotechnology: Opportunities and Challenges

Spices have been used since ancient times as a flavoring agent as well as an important medicinal resource. Biotechnology, using strategies such as cell, organ, and tissue culture, genetic engineering, and the application of nucleic acid markers can escalate the productivity and efficiency of spices. Cell, tissue, and plant organ culture have enabled the rapid and mass reproduction of many disease-free spice plants, which are uniform genetically and qualitatively. In recent years, cell and limb suspension (stem and hair roots) have been considered for producing secondary metabolites and for studying the biosynthesis pathway of metabolites. Plant genetic engineering has helped in the genetic identification and manipulation of enzymes of the biosynthetic pathway of secondary metabolites. Gene transformation has improved the production of secondary metabolites that have yield limitations. Molecular markers are powerful tools for accurately identifying important medicinal species, examining genetic diversity, classifying hereditary reserves, and determining their genetic map irrespective of their age, physiological, and environmental conditions. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) methods like restriction-site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq) have revolutionized the study of genetic diversity, and the enzymes and genes implied in the secondary metabolites biosynthetic pathways can be studded by transcriptome profiling (RNA-seq). The ground-breaking genome editing techniques like Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR), sequence-specific nucleases of transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and zinc-finger nucleases could help in customizing the plants according to the requirements. This article provides an overview of various biotechnology solutions that increase the quality and productivity of spice plants.