Influence of fungal elicitation on glycyrrhizin production in transformed cell cultures of Abrus precatorius Linn

BACKGROUND: Glycyrrhizin, obtained from Abrus precatorius (Indian liquorice), is a phytoconstituent of importance for pharmaceutical and food industries. MATERIALS AND METHODS: High producing and fast growing cell lines of A. precatorius were developed by transformation with Agrobacterium tumefaciens for glycyrrhizin production. Its maximum transformation efficiency of 85% was obtained by infecting leaves with A. tumefaciens MTCC-431 supplemented with 50 μM acetosyringone. Thorough culture growth kinetics with sugar consumption profiles was established. RESULTS: A twofold increase in glycyrrhizin productivity was obtained in transformed A. precatorius cell suspension cultures over the untransformed cultures. The fungal elicitors prepared from Aspergillus niger and Rhizopus stolonifer were tested at different concentrations to enhance glycyrrhizin production in transformed cell suspension cultures of A. precatorius. Maximum enhancement of 4.9- and 3.8-fold in glycyrrhizin contents, were obtained with A. niger (7.5% v/v) and R. stolonifer (5.0% v/v), respectively, on the 5th day after elicitor treatment. CONCLUSION: This study indicates the prospective of the amalgamation of elicitation methodology with transformed cell cultures for the large-scale production of glycyrrhizin.