Stimulation of menthol production in Mentha piperita cell culture

Abstract

Plant cell culture provides an alternative means for producing secondary metabolites. In this study, experiments were carried out to study the impact of several parameters, independently and in combination, on the stimulation of menthol production in the cell suspension culture of Mentha piperita. Callus was obtained from leaf segments of in vitro grown plantlets on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 0.2 mg l −1 of 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid to initiate cell suspension culture. This culture was maintained in half-strength MS medium supplemented with 0.2 mg l −1 of 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid at 15 d interval and used for further studies. Precursor feeding alone, i.e., menthone, at 35 μM concentration showed slightly improved productivity. γ-Cyclodextrin alone at 60 μM concentration and in combination with menthone feeding at 35 μM increased menthol yield up to 92 and 110 mg l −1 in comparison to 77 mg l −1 of control culture. Synergistic potentiation effect of menthone feeding at 35 μM and γ-cyclodextrin at 60 μM treatment followed by in situ adsorption with RP-8 also showed potential stimulation of menthol production in M. piperita cell culture. Fungal elicitor treatment showed enhanced production level up to 140.8 mg l −1 in comparison to that of control. Further studies were carried out with the establishment of Agrobacterium tumefaciens (Ach5) gall-mediated calli, and consequently, cell suspension culture and results showed the significant enhancement of menthol yield up to 278 mg l −1 .

The effects of jasmonic acid and methyl jasmonate on rosmarinic acid production in Mentha × piperita cell suspension cultures

“…Jasmonates were also applied to induce RA production in suspension cultures of several species (Mizukami et al 1993;Szabo et al 1999;Ogata et al 2004;Tsuruga et al 2006;Georgiev et al 2007). Although M. piperita suspension cultures were the subject of several in vitro experiments, most of them were applied to investigate and stimulate menthol production (Park et al 1997;Chang et al 1998;Kim et al 2002;Chakraborty and Chattopadhyay 2008). To the best of our knowledge, an impact of jasmonates on RA production in M. piperita has not been elucidated.…”

Effect of Plant Growth Regulators on Callus, Cell Suspension and Cell Line Selection for Flavonoid Production from Pegaga (<i>centella asiatica</i> L. urban)

“…Cell cultures not only have a higher rate of metabolism than differentiated plants, but also have shorter biosynthetic cycles (Nay et al, 2010;Chakraborty and Chattopadhyay, 2008). Since plant cell culture systems are relatively easy to manipulate by experimental processes, they could be developed into a large-scale culture where the secondary metabolites could be extracted.…”

Methyl jasmonate increases silymarin production in Silybum marianum (L.) Gaernt cell cultures treated with β-cyclodextrins

“…In plant cells CDs have been employed as precursors solubilizers in biotechnological processes (Van Uden et al 1994) and as inducers of secondary metabolite production. For example, b-CDs promoted phytoalexin synthesis and extracellular accumulation in grapevine cultures (Bru et al 2006;Lijavetzky et al 2008;Morales et al 1998;Zamboni et al 2006), induced sesquiterpenes in potato hairy root cultures (Komaraiah et al 2003) and stimulated menthol production in Mentha cultures (Chakraborty and Chattopadhyay 2008).…”