Application of Bioreactor for the Production of Saponin by Adventitious Roots Cultures in Panax Ginseng

Abstract

Ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer) is a herbaceous perennial plant cultivated in Korea, China, Japan and North America. Its roots have been used as traditional medicine for oriental people since ancient times. The crude root extracts possess wide range of saponins and sapogenins and are known to have anabolic, adaptogenic, antibiotic, minor hyperglycemic and anti-cancer activities (Brekman, Dardymov 1969). However, the commercial production of ginseng requires growth periods of four to six years and skillful techniques to manage the soil, climate and prevention of pests. Therefore, biotechnological approach as alternative method to produce saponin in vitro has been made. Since Butenko et al.(1968) first reported the conditions for tissue culture of ginseng root, ginseng cell and tissue for the production of the ginsenosides has been successfully achieved (Jhang et al. 1974, Furuya et al. 1983, Choi et al. 1990, 1995). Moreover, saponin production by cultures of transformed roots with Agrobacterium rhizogenes showed 2.4 times higher contents than native root (Yoshikawa, Furuya 1987). But high fluctuation of saponin content in cell cultures and problems related with human safety in transformed roots are big obstacles for commercialization. There has been very few reports on saponin production by adventitious or ordinary root culture in vitro. In this report, we demonstrated that the adventitious-root culture system by bioreactor is quite feasible for saponin production.