Enhancement of vindoline and vinblastine production in suspension-cultured cells of Catharanthus roseus by artemisinic acid elicitation.

Elicitation is an important strategy to improve production of secondary metabolites in vitro. Artemisinic acid was studied as a novel elicitor to enhance the yield of terpenoid indole alkaloids in the present paper. Our results demonstrated that the concentrations of vindoline and vinblastine were increased by sixfold and twofold, respectively, compared to those of the control group after treatment with artemisinic acid. To elucidate the underlying mechanism, we investigated the gene expression of four enzymes involved in the biosynthetic pathway of vinblastine in the suspension-cultured cells of Catharanthu sroseus. RT-PCR experiment showed that artemisinic acid was able to up-regulate the transcriptions of tryptophan decarboxylase, geraniol 10-hydroxylase, tabersonine 16-hydroxylase and deacetoxyvindoline 4-hydroxylase.