Using hairy roots for production of secondary metabolites in Artemisia

Abstract

Secondary metabolites are a group of chemical compounds in plants which have various functions and applications in different industries such as leather and pharmaceutical products. Artemisia is a genus of important vascular plants which contains many species. There are many chemical compounds in Artemisia which are still unknown. Additionally, hairy root culture in plants is considered to be one of the new techniques applied to production of secondary metabolites which denotes the vast application of this technique. Hairy root culture as a differentiated tissue has been under consideration for many researchers which is because of its genetic stabilization; its rapid growth in a hormone-free medium is also very important. The current study is conducted with the objective of hairy root induction in explant parts of some Artemisia species with various strains of Agrobacterium rhizogenes. The results show that total protein content and enzyme activity during hairy root induction has an ascending procedure. Phenol and flavonoid content have shown considerable increase. The sterol and essential oil have also shown interesting consistency towards each other. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of production secondary metabolites and antioxidant activities by hairy root-derived Artemisia. This study may open possibilities for production of the pharmaceutically high-value secondary metabolites.