Effect of Aspergillus flavus Fungal Elicitor on the Production of Terpenoid Indole Alkaloids in Catharanthus roseus Cambial Meristematic Cells.

Chuxin Liang,Pengfei Zhou,Jiachen Zi,Jincai Liang,Jianhua Zhu,Rongmin Yu,Lv Xu,Chang Chen

doi:10.3390/molecules23123276

Abstract

This study reported the inducing effect of Aspergillus flavus fungal elicitor on biosynthesis of terpenoid indole alkaloids (TIAs) in Catharanthus roseus cambial meristematic cells (CMCs) and its inducing mechanism. According to the results determined by HPLC and HPLC-MS/MS, the optimal condition of the A. flavus elicitor was as follows: after suspension culture of C. roseus CMCs for 6 day, 25 mg/L A. flavus mycelium elicitor were added, and the CMC suspensions were further cultured for another 48 h. In this condition, the contents of vindoline, catharanthine, and ajmaline were 1.45-, 3.29-, and 2.14-times as high as those of the control group, respectively. Transcriptome analysis showed that D4H, G10H, GES, IRS, LAMT, SGD, STR, TDC, and ORCA3 were involved in the regulation of this induction process. The results of qRT-PCR indicated that the increasing accumulations of vindoline, catharanthine, and ajmaline in C. roseus CMCs were correlated with the increasing expression of the above genes. Therefore, A. flavus fungal elicitor could enhance the TIA production of C. roseus CMCs, which might be used as an alternative biotechnological resource for obtaining bioactive alkaloids.

Highlights

Catharanthus roseus (L.) Don is a perennial medicinal plant of the family Apocynaceae
We investigated the inducing effect of the A. flavus fungal elicitor on the biosynthesis of terpenoid indole alkaloids (TIAs) in C. roseus cambial meristematic cells (CMCs), and the inducing mechanism was explored by transcriptome analysis and determination of the expression of TIA biosynthesis-related genes via the quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction technique
C. roseus CMCs were used as plant cell materials for the investigation of the biosynthesis of TIAs

Summary

Introduction

Catharanthus roseus (L.) Don is a perennial medicinal plant of the family Apocynaceae. Vinblastine and vincristine, two bisindole alkaloids derived from coupling vindoline and catharanthine, are natural anticancer drugs and are still among the most valuable agents used to treat cancer [3,4]. These secondary metabolites are produced from the TIA biosynthetic pathway in C. roseus, which is complex and highly regulated (Figure 1) [2,6,7]. The TIA biosynthetic pathway consists of TIA feeder pathways and the downstream of the TIA biosynthetic pathway. The TIA feeder pathways are the monoterpenoid pathway and indole pathway [7].

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Results

Conclusion