natural-products-in-plant-pest-management

13 Biotechnology: a Tool forNatural Product SynthesisSANATH HETTIARACHIDepartment of Botany, University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri LankaAbstractMolecular biology is arguably the fastest growing field in all biological sciences. Newtechniques are discovered and they soon find applications. The search for naturalproducts has a long history, as illustrated by the dependence of traditional medicineon botanicals. With the finding that microorganisms can produce useful productssuch as penicillin, scientists took the challenge to explore the microbial world for newnatural products. Although the search continues with increasing intensity, findingnew and more useful products would not have matched with the effort without thesupport of biotechnology. Although the most powerful approach is genetic manipulation,other techniques such as mutagenesis, breeding and protoplast fusion and therelatively old biotechnology of plant tissue culture are very useful. These also includeeven more simple approaches such as optimizing culture conditions and design offermenters. The combination of technologies together with innovative ideas hasalready increased the production level of already existing natural products andexpanded the diversity of products obtainable from biological sources. In addition toharvesting products from living organisms either in the wild or in cultivation, thedevelopments in metagenomics have also paved the way to harness the bioproductformingability of unculturable microorganisms.13.1 IntroductionBy perusing the various definitions given by different authorities and indictionaries, it becomes apparent that natural products are predominantlychemical compounds of biological origin and are extracted from plants andanimals that produce them during secondary metabolism. None the less,naturally occurring mineral compounds may also be categorized as naturalproducts. Among the myriad of natural compounds, many have pharmaceuticaland other similar applications such as in pest and disease control inagriculture. Furthermore, natural antioxidants, bioflavours, biopreservatives,© CAB International 2011. Natural Products in Plant Pest Management(ed. N.K. Dubey) 263