Cultivation enhances medicinal compounds in Commiphora gileadensis: Implications for industrial bioactive production

Abstract

Although Commiphora gileadensis has not yet been identified as an agricultural resource, the development of reliable cultivation for this valuable wild plant is a major step toward its integration into industrial crop production. In order to assess resource allocation patterns in specialized metabolism, this work used GC-MS to compare wild and cultivated C. gileadensis . The metabolite profile of cultivated plants exhibited a specialized metabolic profile, with precursors being reallocated toward prominent high-value chemicals including β-cadinene and viridiflorol. Conversely, under changing natural stress, wild individuals retained higher chemical richness (S = 47) and Shannon diversity (H′ = 3.204), which is compatible with bet-hedging strategies, evolutionary adaptations that preserve more phenotypic or metabolic variability at the expense of decreased performance under ideal circumstances in order to protect against environmental unpredictability. These results demonstrate phenotypic plasticity that permits metabolic specialization in stable conditions while maintaining basic biochemical frameworks, which is consistent with the Growth–Differentiation Balance Hypothesis, a paradigm that forecasts trade-offs in which growth with limited resources prioritizes secondary metabolite differentiation above biomass production. Thus, cultivation promotes larger titers of certain therapeutic compounds, which may lead to standardized bioactive production in industrial settings, albeit at the expense of the diversity of secondary metabolites in general. These results imply that C. gileadensis is a promising aromatic medical plant for industrial-scale production of standardized, high-yield bioactive compounds in dry areas. • Cultivation shifts C. gileadensis from chemical diversity to specialization. • Viridiflorol content increased by 169.9 % under managed agricultural conditions. • Wild plants maintain high chemical richness as a "bet-hedging" defense strategy. • Metabolic abundance distributions remain conserved despite specialized yield gains. • The increased production of medicinal compounds from agriculture favors C. gileadensis as a scalable source of industrial metabolites.