Controlled Production of Carnosic Acid and Carnosol in Cell Suspensions of Lepechinia meyenii Treated with Different Elicitors and Biosynthetic Precursors

Abstract

Lepechinia meyenii is a medicinal plant specialized in the biosynthesis of different types of antioxidants including the diterpenes carnosic (CA) acid and carnosol (CS). Herein we present the results of plant tissue culture approaches performed in this medicinal plant with particular emphasis on the generation and evaluation of a cell suspension system for CA and CS production. The effect of sucrose concentration, temperature, pH, and UV‐light exposure was explored. In addition, diverse concentrations of microbial elicitors (salicylic acid, pyocyanin, Glucanex, and chitin), simulators of abiotic elicitors (polyethylene glycol and NaCl), and biosynthetic precursors (mevalonolactone, geranylgeraniol, and miltiradiene/abietatriene) were evaluated on batch cultures for 20 days. Miltiradiene/abietatriene obtainment was achieved through a metabolic engineering approach using a recombinant strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Our results suggested that the maximum accumulation (Accmax) of CA and CS was mainly conferred to stimuli associated with oxidative stress such as UV‐light exposure (Accmax, 6.2 mg L−1) polyethylene glycol (Accmax, 6.5 mg L−1) NaCl (Accmax, 5.9 mg L−1) which simulated drought and saline stress, respectively. Nevertheless the bacterial elicitor pyocyanin was also effective to increase the production of both diterpenes (Accmax, 6.4 mg L−1). Outstandingly, the incorporation of upstream biosynthetic precursors such as geranylgeraniol and miltiradiene/abietatriene, generated the best results with Accmax of 8.6 and 16.7 mg L−1, respectively. Optimized batch cultures containing 100 mg L−1 geranylgeraniol, 50 mg L−1 miltiradiene/abietatriene (95 : 5 %) and 5 g L−1 polyethylene glycol treated with 6 min UV light pulse during 30 days resulted in Accmax of 26.7 mg L−1 for CA and 17.3 mg L−1 for CS on days 18–24. This strategy allowed to increase seven folds the amounts of CA and CS in comparison with batch cultures without elicitation (Accmax, 4.3 mg L−1).

Comparative effect of resveratrol, carnosic acid and hernandulcin on target enzymes and biochemical markers linked to carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in mice

“…HE was produced and purified through the cell suspension system of Phyla scaberrima fed with (+)-epi-α-bisabolol as a biosynthetic precursor (Villa-Ruano et al, 2021). CA was produced and isolated from batch cultures using cell suspensions of Lepechinia meyenii treated with miltiradiene/ abietatriene as biosynthetic precursors (Villa-Ruano et al, 2023).…”

The Use of Ultrasound-Assisted Maceration for the Extraction of Carnosic Acid and Carnosol from Sage (Salvia officinalis L.) Directly into Fish Oil

“…Carnosic acid also exhibits antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, anticancer and neuroprotective properties [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. It can also be a preventive and supportive measure in the treatment of many diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and COVID-19 [ 4 ] as well as some cancers [ 2 ]. Recently, research has also been conducted into its anti-prion properties [ 5 ].…”

“…Rosemary, followed by sage, among all types of plants, are the richest and most important sources of carnosic acid and its derivatives. Nevertheless, these compounds have also been identified in plants of the genus Lepechinia , Oreganum, Thymus and Hyssopus [ 4 , 6 , 14 , 19 ]. Extractions with organic solvents or water are usually used to isolate active substances from plant material with relatively low yields and long extraction times, but they require the use of large volumes of solvents.…”