CONSTITUTIVE AND ELICITATION INDUCED METABOLISM OF ISOFLAVONES AND PTEROCARPANS IN CHICKPEA (CICER-ARIETINUM) CELL-SUSPENSION CULTURES

Constitutive phenolics of chickpea cell suspension cultures are the isoflavones formononetin and biochanin A, the isoflavanones homoferreirin and cicerin and the pterocarpans medicarpin and maackiain. They accumulate as vacuolar malonylglucosides. The biosynthetic pathways to isoflavones, pterocarpans and malonylglucoside conjugates together with their enzymes are explained. Elicitation of cell cultures leads to pronounced increases in the activities of biosynthetic enzymes with differential effects on the enzymes involved in conjugate metabolism. Low elicitor doses favour pterocarpan conjugate formation whereas high doses lead to pterocarpan aglycone accumulation accompanied by vacuolar efflux of formononetin and pterocarpan malonylglucosides. Elicitor-induced changes in enzyme activities and vacuolar efflux of conjugates are prevented by application of 10(-3)M concentrations of cinnamic acid. Cinnamate is alternatively metabolized to a glucose ester, a S-glutathionyl conjugate and to cell wall bounds forms; these reactions are intensified by elicitation. Isoflavone and pterocarpan biosynthesis and conjugate metabolism as regulated by elicitation and cinnamate is depicted in a metabolic grid to explain the complex regulatory pattern of phenolic accumulation in chickpea cell cultures.