Biotic elicitation mediated in vitro production of L-DOPA from Mucuna pruriens (L.) DC. cell cultures

With the emerging rise in the need for drugs extracted from various plant sources, there also arises the need for the optimum production of the drugs on a larger scale and conservation of those medicinal plants using different in vitro techniques and biotechnological approaches. Plant tissue culture techniques play a prominent role in mass multiplication of the plant. Whereas, strategies such as precursor feeding, elicitation, increases the metabolite content several-fold. Thus, an attempt of using the biotic elicitors for enhancing L-DOPA production, the anti-Parkinson's drug from Mucuna pruriens (L.) DC. cell cultures, has been reported in the present study. Aqueous extracts of algae [Amphiroa anceps (AA), Gracillaria ferogusonii (GF), Kappaphycus striatum (KS), and Sargassum lanceolatum (SL)], fungus [Aspergillus sps. (AS), Penicillium sps. (PE), and Cordyceps sps (CO)], and polysaccharide [Chitosan (CH)] solution were exposed to the cell cultures for 3, 6, and 9 d, respectively, and their effect on biomass and L-DOPA production was noted. This is the first report demonstrating the enhancement of biomass and L-DOPA from M. pruriens cell cultures with the use of various algal and fungal elicitors. Based on productivity (L-DOPA concentration x biomass x volume), it was observed that Cordyceps showed the best result and enhanced both biomass and metabolite to a greater scale. The elicitors, which showed a significant increase, are as follows: CO > AS > PE > CH > AA > KS > GF > SL. On the whole, it was noted that fungal extracts showed better results than algae.