Hairy Root Cultures of Taxus cuspidate for Enhanced Production of Paclitaxel

Hairy root cultures were established by transforming seedlings of Taxus cuspidate Sieb. Et Zucc (Korean yew) using Agrobacterium rhizogenes. Initially, 107 lines of hairy roots were induced by infection with 3 strains of Agrobacterium (R1000, A4, and 15384), however, only three lines generated from the R1000 strain were stably grown on hormone-free media over 10 months of successive cultures. These lines were designated as RC11104, RC11105 and RC11106. The hairy root line RC 11106 was selected for further experiments for taxol production based on its growth properties. Upon methyl jasmonate treatment, the RC11106 Une accumulated 52.5 mg/L of taxol over 2 weeks of incubation at a 20-L culture scale.