Formation of the Indole Alkaloids Serpentine and Ajmalicine in Cell Suspension Cultures of Catharanthus roseus

Accumulation of β-Carboline Alkaloids and Serotonin by Cell Cultures of Peganum harmala L

“…However, we found that one has a better chance to get higher yielding strains from higher yielding parents. Thus, the proposed strategy of Zenk et al (27) to select high yielding plants for the initiation of high yielding cultures seems to be a worthwhile approach despite the low correlation reported here. The low correlation might become understandable if one considers the remarkable variation found in -100 protoplast-derived cell cultures of a single Catharanthus leaf (4).…”

“…In testing the production medium with different cultures, we consistently found an increased accumulation of harman alkaloids and serotonin that was 2 to 20 times higher than in normally grown cultures (Table IV). DISCUSSION Investigations as to whether or not there is a correlation between the alkaloid content of a plant and a cell culture derived therefrom have been made with Catharanthus roseus (19,27) and tobacco (9). Zenk et al (27) found that suspension cultures from high yielding plants generally produce more alkaloids than cultures from low yielding parents, although they observed a large variation of the alkaloid content.…”

“…DISCUSSION Investigations as to whether or not there is a correlation between the alkaloid content of a plant and a cell culture derived therefrom have been made with Catharanthus roseus (19,27) and tobacco (9). Zenk et al (27) found that suspension cultures from high yielding plants generally produce more alkaloids than cultures from low yielding parents, although they observed a large variation of the alkaloid content. Roller (19) showed that high and low yielding plants gave both high and low yielding callus cultures.…”

“…The value of selecting directly for cells with increased capacity for the synthesis and accumulation of secondary compounds has been demonstrated (22,27). This approach was also successfully applied to the Peganum cultures.…”

“…The formation of secondary compounds is rather low in most plant cell cultures, however, and conditions allowing higher synthesis of these compounds often have to be established first. This may be achieved by analytical and biochemical selection for highly productive strains from established cultures (3,22,27), or by altering the medium composition for higher production (10,27,28). Another strategy applied to obtain high producing strains is to start cultures from selected, high producing plants (12,22,27 Cultures were incubated at 26°C in the dark on a gyratory shaker (120 rpm) and subcultured every 3 weeks.…”