Elicitation Improves the Production of Bioactive Compounds and Antioxidant Activity in Cell Suspension Culture of Withania coagulans (Stocks) Dunal

Abstract

Abiotic and biotic elicitors may induce higher synthesis of bioactive compounds in medicinal plants. In the present study, the impact of salicylic acid (SA) and cellulase from Aspergillus niger (CE) elicitors with 200 mg/L concentration at 24, 48 and 72 h treatment durations was evaluated on total phenolic and flavonoid contents and Withaferin A and Withanolide A compounds (analyzed by HPLC) as well as free radicals scavenging activity in cell suspension culture derived from leaf and stem explants of Withania coagulans (Stocks) Dunal for the their production in commercial level. The results of this investigation revealed that all elicitors treated cell cultures obviously promoted total phenol content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), Withaferin A and Withanolide A accumulation as well as antioxidant activity. Also, these characteristics increased as treatment duration of SA and CE elicitors enhanced in both leaf and stem cell extracts and reached a maximum at 72 h treatment duration. In most treatments, TPC and TFC of leaf cell extracts did not have significant difference with TPC and TFC of stem cell extracts. In contrast, the leaf cell extracts had higher Withaferin A and Withanolide A amounts when compared to stem cell extracts under all treatments. The highest values of TPC, TFC, Withaferin A, Withanolide A, and antioxidant activity observed in SA elicitor treated leaf cell extracts at 72 h treatment duration (1.61-fold, 2.46-fold, 3.08-fold, 1.99-fold, and 1.78-fold higher than control culture, respectively). Therefore, elicitation can be applied as a promising strategy for large-scale production of W. coagulans valuable secondary metabolites in cell suspension culture at commercial level.