Bioengineering Hairy Roots: Phytoremediation, Secondary Metabolism, Molecular Pharming, Plant-Plant Interactions And Biofuels

Hairy root cultures are an efficient tool to understand plant biology, biotechnology and other applied sciences. In particular such cultures have revealed many cues of plant cells related to growth, development, physiological and biochemical processes. Thus, hairy roots are used to study secondary metabolism and production of bioactive compounds such as flavonoids. Transgenic roots are used as biofoactories to produce heterologous recombinant proteins for pharmaceutical purposes. Furthermore, they have shown promising applications in phytoremediation and restoring the environment because of advantages in the reduction of toxic organic and inorganic pollutants from soil, air, wastewater, groundwater and biowaste. This review focuses on the recent progress of bioengineering hairy root culture systems.