Effect of elicitation and feeding on the precursors for the production of taxanes in Taxus baccata L. suspension culture

Cell cultures of Taxus species are considered as a promising alternative source for the anticancer drug taxol (paclitaxel) and related taxanes [1, 2]. In this work we studied effect of jasmonic acid (JA) as an elicitor and 10-deacetylbaccatin III (10-DAB) and N-benzoyl-3-phenyl-isoserin (BPI) as precursors on taxanes production in suspension cultures of T. baccata L.. Baccatin III, taxol and 7-epitaxol content was measured in the medium and cells by HPLC with UV/VIS detector. The production of taxanes increased significantly after the addition of the precursors. The combination of all three treatments gave the highest yield of taxanes (45.23mg/L of media) with 10% taxol. Baccatin III content in the medium increased 292 times, taxol 24 times and 7-epitaxol 23 times compared with control cultures. In cultures fed with precursors JA, baccatin III as well as taxol and 7-epitaxol production was affected positively. In control cultures most taxanes were retained in cells (89%) and only negligible amounts were measured in the medium. When the production reached maximum, 81% of total taxanes were found in the medium. Taxol was distributed almost equally between the medium (53%) and the cells (47%). In our experiment 10-DAB was essential for the increasing of taxanes production. We presume that JA acts upon the taxol biosynthetic path between baccatin III and taxol in T. baccata suspension culture because of the relatively highest enhancement of taxol when elicited and none-elicited cultures are compared. However, the content of baccatin III was also increased after the treatment with JA [3].

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by S4055301 project of ASCR.

References: 1.Yukimune, Y. et al. (1996), Nat. Biotechnol. 14: 1129–1132. 2. Srinivasan, V. et al. (1997), Plant. Cell Rep. 16: 600–604. 3. Czech Patent 19–05.