Identification of elicitors enhances the polyphenolic compounds and pharmacological potential in hairy root cultures of Aster scaber

Abstract

Aster scaber Thunb is an important Korean mountainous vegetable and also a medicinal herb, which produces valuable bioactive compounds. This study showed that hairy root cultures can be established to improve the accumulation of biomass and phenolic compounds in A. scaber. Hairy roots were molecularly confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We examined the influences of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and yeast extract (YE) elicitors for the enhancement of phenolic compounds and pharmaceutical activities on hairy root cultures of A. scaber. Application of 100 mg/L of YE resulted in significantly higher fresh and dry root biomass (97.91 and 9.82 g/L) than MeJA and non-elicited control root cultures. MeJA (100 μM) and YE (100 mg/L) elicitation dramatically induced the accumulation of total phenolics (244.5 ± 2.5; 215.10 ± 2.0 GAE) and flavonoids (6.7 ± 0.3; 6.0 ± 0.2 QE) than non-elicited root cultures (181.65 ± 1.5 mg/g GAE and 4.65 ± 0.2 mg/g QE). Phenolic compounds including six hydroxycinnamic acids, seven flavonols, seven hydroxybenzoic acids, vanillin, homogentisic acid, and resveratrol were identified via UHPLC analysis in elicited (MeJA 100 μM and YE 100 mg/L) and control root cultures. Because of these phenolic compounds enhancement, the antioxidant, antimicrobial, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory and anticancer activities were high in the in the MeJA- and YE-elicited hairy roots than in the control cultures. MeJA was more effective in the elicitation of phenolic compounds and pharmaceutical potential than YE. The identification of elicitors can lead the large quantity of phenolic compounds to encounter extensive range demand through marketable production without endangering of A. scaber. This elicitation approach could be large scale production of the commercially possible amount of these valuable bioactive compounds by hairy root cultures in A. scaber.