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Echinacea used as a dietary supplement increased markedly, it has gained international popularity due to claims that it beneficially stimulates the body's immune system. Plant in vitro cultures are able to produce and accumulate many medicinally valuable secondary metabolites. Efforts have focused on the stimulation of biosynthetic activities of cultured cells using various strategies such as, improving culture conditions, using selection producer cells, addition precursor and biotransformation, elicitation and stress induced production, transformation hairy roots and never-ending bioreactor.Ultraviolet-B radiation is one important environmental factor that in many cases induces the production of secondary metabolites. UV-C irradiation is an important factor that can act as a switch, controlling expression of specific genes involved in cell growth and secondary metabolism of plants. Gamma irradiation has been widely applied in medicine and biology in terms of biological effects induced by a counter intuitive switch-over from low doses stimulation to high-doses inhibition.
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Mona S. Abd El Aal, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Plant Physiology in the Faculty of Agriculture,Department of Agricultural Botany at the University of Ain Shams at Cairo, Egypt. Dr. Mona graduated with a B.S. degree in Horticulture in 2004. She earned an M.S. and Ph.D.degree in Agricultural Botany.
