Cadmium accumulation and alkaloid production of Narcissus tazetta plants grown under in vitro condition with cadmium stress

The capacity to accumulate cadmium (Cd) in Narcissus tazetta was investigated. Narcissus, an ornamental and medicinal plant can be used for the production of highly valuable alkaloids with anti-tumor, anti-viral and anti-cholinergic activities. For rapid propagation, in vitro micropropagation of this plant was done by three procedures: induction, proliferation and bulb production from twin scales as explants. After 4 months, micropropagated plants were treated by two concentrations of cadmium chloride (0.5, 1.0 mM) in the MS + 9% sucrose solidified media. After 3 weeks, growth, total proteins, peroxidase activity, Cd accumulation, quality and quantity of alkaloids were studied. Results showed that this plant accumulated 2778.13 μg g−1 DW, 801.87 μg g−1 DW and 162.8313 μg g−1 DW Cd in roots, bulbs and leaves respectively without any impact on growth. In order to study the ability of this plant in phytoremediation, tolerance index (TI), bioconcentration factors (BCF) and translocation factor (TF) were measured. Due to the TI > 0.6, BCF > 1 and TF < 1 concluded that Narcissus is suitable as phytostabilizer for remediation of Cd from contaminated media. Peroxidase activity increased under Cd stress. Also, isozyme pattern of peroxidase was changed and new anionic isoenzyme was appeared. Cd enhanced alkaloid content and altered its constituents as homolycorine was found instead of 9-O-demethylhomolycorine under Cd stress. This results presented in this study include the first report on the status of Narcissus alkaloids under Cd treatment.