Enhanced production of hyoscyamine and scopolamine from genetically transformed root culture of Hyoscyamus reticulatus L. elicited by iron oxide nanoparticles

Manouchehr Farjaminezhad,Fereshte Moharrami,Bahman Hosseini,Ali Sharafi

doi:10.1007/s11627-017-9802-0

Abstract

The medicinal plant Hyoscyamus reticulatus L. is a rich source of hyoscyamine and scopolamine, the tropane alkaloids. The use of hairy root cultures has focused significant attention on production of important metabolites such as stable tropane alkaloid production. Elicitation is an effective approach to induce secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways. Hairy roots were derived from cotyledon explants inoculated with Agrobacterium rhizogenes and elicited by iron oxide nanoparticles (FeNPs) at different concentrations (0, 450, 900, 1800, and 3600 mg L−1) for different exposure times (24, 48, and 72 h). The highest hairy root fresh and dry weights were found in the medium supplemented with 900 mg L−1 FeNPs. Antioxidant enzyme activity was significantly increased in induced hairy roots compared to non-transgenic roots. The highest hyoscyamine and scopolamine production (about fivefold increase over the control) was achieved with 900 and 450 mg L−1 FeNPs at 24 and 48 h of exposure time, respectively. This is the first report of the effect of FeNP elicitor on hairy root cultures of a medicinal plant. We suggest that FeNPs could be an effective elicitor in hairy root cultures in order to increase tropane alkaloid production.

Highlights

Hyoscyamus reticulatus L. is one of the most important medicinal plants in South-west Asia, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey (Madani et al 2015)
We suggest that FeNPs could be an effective elicitor in hairy root cultures in order to increase tropane alkaloid production
The results showed that iron oxide nanoparticles stimulated hyoscyamine and scopolamine production in H. reticulatus hairy root culture

Summary

Introduction

Hyoscyamus reticulatus L. (belonging to Solanaceae family) is one of the most important medicinal plants in South-west Asia, Egypt, Iran, and Turkey (Madani et al 2015). Due to the complicated chemical formulation of hyoscyamine and scopolamine, their synthetic production is too expensive and so, in practice, they are obtained from Solanaceae plants. They are normally produced in fresh root cells and transported to the aerial plant fragments (Ghorbanpour et al 2015). Prior studies have described enhancement of secondary metabolite production by different elicitors in hairy root cultures of medicinal plants. Tropane alkaloid production has been elicited in hairy root culture of solanaceous plants such as Brugmansia candida (Pitta-Alvarez et al 2000), Anisodus acutangulus (Kai et al 2012), and Hyoscyamus niger (Jaremicz et al 2013). The highest content of glycyrrhizin was observed in Glycyrrhiza glabra seedlings after elicitation by CuO and ZnO nanoparticles (Oloumi et al 2015)

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