Biosynthesis, therapeutic characteristics, origin and strategies to improve the yield of vasicine in plants

From the year 2016 to 2019, a total of 196 botanical drugs were registered for clinical trials, out of which 81 drugs were in phase II or III laid an environment for further trials and marketing of the drugs. Vasicine, a pyrroquinazoline alkaloidal compound found in some medicinal plants such as Justicia adhatoda and Sida cordifolia to name a few. Due to its broad range of health-promoting properties, the compound has piqued the attention of nutritionists and medicinal chemists. The compound’s recent pharmacological applications include antiviral activity against SARS-Co-V2, antimicrobial activity against E. aerogenes, S. epidermidis and P. aeruginosa, cytotoxic effect against lung adenocarcinoma and free radical scavenging activity, implying a potential role as an antioxidant. Vasicine was also discovered to have a possible anti-inflammatory property in carrageenan-induced inflammation, as well as neuroprotective efficacy in in vitro experiments on neuroblastoma cells by blocking cholinesterases in Alzheimer’s disease and improving memory and cognition. The integration of a multi-omics approach to elucidate the biosynthetic pathway and key regulatory enzymes laid the basis for metabolically engineering the entire pathway in microbial systems, as well as polyculture of microbes for robust biosynthesis strategies to overcome the limitations of traditional monoculture techniques for bioactive production. Genome editing with CRISPR Cas technologies plays a major role in the transformation of vasicine metabolite engineering to alter the process of biosynthesis and increase large-scale production in plants.