Elicitation as an essential strategy for enhancing anthraquinone accumulation in hairy root cultures of Rubia tinctorum

MARÍA PERASSOLO; CARDILLO AB; BUSTO VD; RIVIERE S; CEREZO J; GIULIETTI AM; RODRIGUEZ TALOU J

Hairy Root Cultures (HRCs) based Applications - Methods and Protocols

Springer Verlag

Lugar: Singapore; Año: 2020; p. 133 - 152

Plant-derived drugs represent a significant proportion of the pharmaceutical market. Plant invitro culture has emerged as a useful platform for producing secondary metabolites due to itsmultiple advantages: production under controlled culture conditions, independence fromgeographic, seasonal or weather conditions, and since it avoids the use of land and the extractionfrom the natural source, it has a low environmental impact. Since the production of secondarymetabolites in plant in vitro cultures can be low, there are several strategies that can be applied toenhance the production of these compounds. Elicitation has been widely used to increase secondarymetabolite production in plant in vitro cultures. This phenomenon involves the treatment of plantcultures with different agents (physical, chemical or biological) that triggers a defence response,which generally involves the production of secondary metabolites. Anthraquinones are secondarymetabolites traditionally used as dyes that exhibit interesting therapeutic applications, such asantiviral (against Hepatitis C virus), and as photosensitizers of cancer cells. In this chapter, we willpresent an approach for the establishment of hairy root cultures of Rubia tinctorum, and a protocolfor elicitation with methyl jasmonate. We will also discuss the possibility of combine elicitationwith other strategies, such as in situ removal with Miglyol® 812