Production of tropane alkaloids in Hyoscyamus niger (black henbane) hairy roots grown in bubble-column and spray bioreactors.

Hairy root cultures of Hyoscyamus niger were cultivated in shake-flasks, a bubble-column bioreactor and a hybrid bubble-column/spray bioreactor and evaluated for alkaloid production. The latter gave the highest anisodamine content (0.67 mg/g dry wt) whereas scopolamine, hyoscyamine and cuscohygrine concentrations were highest in the bubble-column reactor (5.3, 1.6 and 26.5 mg/g dry wt, respectively). Both bioreactors gave similar productivities of scopolamine (1 and 0.98 mg/l day) and cuscohygrine (5 and 5.4 mg/l day), but anisodamine productivity was 3.5-fold higher in the hybrid bioreactor (HB) (0.02 and 0.07 mg/l day, respectively). Elicitation with methyl jasmonate increased scopolamine productivity by 146 % in roots grown in the HB whereas their permeabilization with DMSO caused 4-, 5-, 25- and 28-fold increase in scopolamine, hyoscyamine, anisodamine and cuscohygrine concentrations in the growth medium. In situ extraction with Amberlite XAD-2 doubled scopolamine productivity in the hybrid reactor after 50 days.