Abstract
Plants remain a major source of new drugs, leads and fine
chemicals. Cell cultures deriving from plants offer a
fascinating tool to study plant metabolic pathways and
offer large scale production systems for valuable
compounds - commercial examples include compounds such as
paclitaxel. The major constraint with undifferentiated
cell cultures is that they are generally considered to be
genetically unstable and cultured cells tend to produce
low yields of secondary metabolites especially over time.
Hairy roots, a tumor tissue caused by infection of
Agrobacterium rhizogenes is a relevant alternative for
plant secondary metabolite production for being fast
growing, able to grow without phytohormones, and
displaying higher stability than undifferentiated cells.
Although genetic and metabolic stability has often been
connected to transgenic hairy roots, there are only few
reports on how a very long-term subculturing effects on
the production capacity of hairy roots. In this study,
hairy roots producing high tropane alkaloid levels were
subjected to 16-year follow-up in relation to genetic and
metabolic stability. Cryopreservation method for hairy
roots of Hyoscyamus muticus was developed to replace
laborious subculturing, and although the post-thaw
recovery rates remained low, the expression of transgene
remained unaltered in cryopreserved roots. It was shown
that although displaying some fluctuation in the
metabolite yields, even an exceedingly long-term
subculturing was successfully applied without significant
loss of metabolic activity.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1486 |
Journal | Frontiers in Plant Science |
Volume | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- plant cell culture
- hairy roots
- hyoscyamine 6β-hydroxylase
- scopolamine
- stability
- cryopreservation