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Abstract max 2600 characters including spaces, title of the paper, author(s), affiliation(s), references and acknowledgement. It will be reviewed only if the sections Materials and Methods, Results and Conclusion have at least 1100 characters including spacing.

ALKALOID PRODUCTION IN CELL CULTURES OF CATHARANTHUS ROSEUS ELICITED WITH CYCLODEXTRINS AND JASMONATE

(max. 145 characters INCLUDING spacing)

Ioan POPESCU1, John SMITH2 and Amanda SMITH2*

1Department of Plant Biology. University of Saragoza, Spain.

2Department of Horticulture. University of California Davis, USA.

*Corresponding author, e-mail: pedre2@us.es

Keywords: Catharanthus roseus,…(3 to 5 keywords, in alphabetical order)

Introduction. Catharanthus roseus is known to produce numerous alkaloids with high pharmaceutical importance such as vinblastine and vincristine which have antineoplastic activity (Morales, 1998). Since 1998, it was demonstrated that elicitation of grapevine cell cultures with cyclodextrins (CDs) induced the production of resveratrol (Bru and Pedreño, 2003). As proved by Pedreño et al. (2008)……………

Aims. Taking into account the former experimental models of elicitation, we Considering that dimeric alkaloids are produced at very low levels in Catharanthus roseus, cell cultures were studied as a potential way to produce these compounds as monomers. Among different strategies to increase alkaloid production, elicitation could be one efficient strategy to provoke important increases in product yield.

Materials and Methods. Cell cultures were produced by…The measurements were done…

Results. The combined use of methyljasmonate (MeJA) and CDs provoked a synergistic effect increasing even more the levels of resveratrol in grapevine cell cultures. The effect of CDs on resveratrol production allowed the development of an innovative procedure where high levels of this metabolite were accumulated and were easily recovered directly from the culture media without cell biomass destruction (2).

Conclusion. In the present research work, we demonstrated that this innovative technology focusing on alkaloid production improvement by elicitation of Catharanthus roseus cell cultures with a combination of both MeJA and CDs, Is successful.

References (optional, in alphabetical order, maximum 3 references)

Bru R. and Pedreño M. (2003). Method for the production of resveratrol in cell cultures. PCT patent WO 03/062406.

Morales M. (1998). All about Catharanthus roseus. Plant Cell, Tissue and Organ Culture 53: 179-187.

Pedreño M., Bru R. and Morales M. (2008). Synergistic and cytotoxic action of indole alkaloids produced from elicited cell cultures of Catharanthus roseus. Pharm Biol. 51(3):304-310.