Accumulation of rosmarinic, chlorogenic and caffeic acids in in vitro cultures of Eryngium planum L.

Eryngium planum L. cell and organ cultures were maintained on Murashige and Skoog media (MS), supplemented with exogenous hormones of different types and various concentrations for high biomass growth. The callus and cell suspension cultures were treated with increased sucrose concentration and/or elicited by methyl jasmonate for the enhancement of selected phenolic acids accumulation. Three phenolic acids, rosmarinic acid (RA), chlorogenic acid (CGA) and caffeic acid (CA), were detected by HPLC-DAD in those cultures. The sum of their content in the dry material was found to be higher in the shoot culture (3.95 mg g(-1)), root culture (7.05 mg g(-1)), callus (6.20 mg g(-1)) and cell suspension (2.04 mg g(-1)) than in the leaves (1.87 mg g(-1)) and roots (0.76 mg g(-1)) of intact plants. The major compound of in vitro cultures was always rosmarinic acid. The content of RA could be increased approximately threefold (16.24 mg g(-1)) in the callus culture and approximately twofold (3.91 mg g(-1)) in the cell suspension culture by elicitation with 100 mu M methyl jasmonate (MeJA). The higher concentration of sucrose (S) in the medium (5, 6 %) led to over a twofold increase of CGA content in the callus culture (2.54 mg g(-1)). The three mentioned phenolic acids have been found in E. planum undifferentiated and differentiated in vitro cultures for the first time.