Influence of environmental biotic factors on the content of saponins in plants

Abstract

Saponins occur constitutively in many plant species as part of their defense system. However, saponin content in plants seems to be dynamic, responding to many external factors including various biotic stimuli connected to herbivory attack and pathogenic infection, as well as involved in plant mutualistic symbioses with rhizobial bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi. Thus, not only saponins influence the living organisms interacting with plants, but in turn, all these interactions can impact the plant saponin content. According to their constitutive occurrence in plants, saponins are regarded mainly as phytoanticipins. Nevertheless, some presented data clearly point out to induced biosynthesis of saponins, especially in plant response to insect herbivory or inoculation with root symbionts, while the best studied examples of interactions between plants and their microbial pathogens show rather qualitative change of saponin composition based on chemical modifications of preformed, pre-infectional precursors. Simultaneously, despite evident inducibility of saponin production in plant cell cultures, the possible role of these compounds as phytoalexins synthesized in intact plants after pathogen infection is still not well documented. Some practical patterns and ecological consequences of biotic factors influencing saponin content in plants are briefly highlighted, with the special attention paid to microbial inoculants applied for optimisation of saponin synthesis in cultivated medicinal plants.

Changes in Saponins Content of Some Selected Nigerian Vegetables during Blanching and Juicing

“…Observed variation in saponin content of various green leafy vegetables studied, showed that different vegetables have ability to produce these secondary metabolites as a result of genetic constitution of the plants and or other environmental factors [17,18]. High saponin levels were observed in Telferia ocidentalis, Colocacia argente, Lunea taraxacifolia and Ammmarantus viridis, having saponin in mg/100g dry weight, well above 400.…”

Chemical and Nutritional Composition of Copao Fruit (Eulychnia acida Phil.) Unswe Thee Environmental Conditions in the Coquimbo Region

“…Mineral soil conditions for N, P and K varied among the evaluated sectors, but K content was higher at Quebrada Honda than at Gualliguaica and Manquehua. The presence of the components in the fruits is highly regulated by both genetic and environmental (soil and climate), factors (Lester and Crosby, 2002;Lester, 2006;Guzmán-Maldonado et al, 2010;Szakiel et al, 2010).…”

Effect of Organic-Inorganic N Sources on Growth, NPK Nutrients and Secondary Metabolites of Panax Notoginseng (Burk.) F. H. Chen

“…The number and quantitative variation of plant secondary metabolites are affected by their around growing environment, which including biotic and abiotic factors (Szakiel et al, 2011a;2011b). The biotic factors contain interactions between plants and their enemies or allies (Szakiel et al, 2011a); and the abiotic factors include temperature, soil fertility, water and light (Szakiel et al, 2011b).…”

“…The number and quantitative variation of plant secondary metabolites are affected by their around growing environment, which including biotic and abiotic factors (Szakiel et al, 2011a;2011b). The biotic factors contain interactions between plants and their enemies or allies (Szakiel et al, 2011a); and the abiotic factors include temperature, soil fertility, water and light (Szakiel et al, 2011b). The assumptions tested by a number of studies are being approved, reveal that secondary metabolites especially phenolic compounds are stimulated to synthesize under adverse conditions but restrained under good conditions for growth (Liu et al, 2010a;Liu et al, 2010b;Ibrahim et al, 2011).…”