Progress in medicinal plant Rehmannia glutinosa: Metabolite profiling, tissue culture, growth and its regulation, and functional genomics

As an important medicinal plant, Rehmannia glutinosa Libosch. is widely spread in East Asian countries, and its root, possessing multiple pharmacological values, is used as traditional Chinese medicine in clinics. Recently, much progress in R. glutinosa has been made. Tissue culture and micropropagation have been applied to generate virus-free germs or homogeneous plants. In vitro culture and generation of transgenic R. glutinosa plants has been recently setup, which is helpful to develop more genetically-modified germplasms. Multiple environmental factors (e.g. CO2 concentration, humidity, transpiration, drought, and viral diseases) play an important role in growth and development of R. glutinosa plants. Gene cloning, genetic transformation and metabolite profiling are becoming attractive. The review aims to summarize advances on metabolomics, tissue culture and regeneration, growth and its regulation, and functional genomics of R. glutinosa, which is in favor of the cultivation, processing, in addition to the study of metabolic engineering and metabolite profiling in R. glutinosa.