Elicitors Derived from Hazel (Corylus avellana L.) Cell Suspension Culture Enhance Growth and Paclitaxel Production of Epicoccum nigrum

The microbial fermentation is considered as the potential source for large-scale production of paclitaxel. Since co-cultivation/mixed fermentation strategy has been reported as a yield enhancement strategy for paclitaxel production, investigation of fungal endophyte response to plant culture medium, plant cell extract (CE) and medium filtrate (MF) of plant cell suspension culture in terms of growth and paclitaxel production is interesting. In this study, 35 endophytic fungi were isolated from Taxus baccata and Corylus avellana grown in Iran. The analysis of high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry showed that one isolate (YEF(2)) produced paclitaxel. The isolate YEF(2) was identified as Epicoccum nigrum by sequencing of ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 rDNA region and actin gene. YEF(2) was slow-growing in Murashige and Skoog medium, but the synergistic interaction of gibberellic acid (GA(3)) and CE of C. avellana enhanced the growth of YEF(2). The highest total yield of paclitaxel (314.7 µg/l; 11.5-folds) of E. nigrum strain YEF(2) was obtained by using 28% (v/v) filter sterilized CE of C. avellana and 2 µg ml(−1) GA(3) that was significantly higher than the control. In this study, the effects of the plant cell extract on growth and paclitaxel production of paclitaxel producing endophytic fungus were studied for the first time.