Enhanced production of vasicine in Adhatoda vasica (L.) Nees. cell culture by elicitation

Vasicine, isolated from the shrub Adhatoda vasica, is a well-known pyrroloquinazoline alkaloidal compound which has been used for the treatment of various diseases and disorders, mostly for the respiratory-tract ailments. To counter the present low content in leaves and uneconomical chemical synthesis, alternate ways to produce vasicine have been required; but vasicine remains subtle in cell cultures of A. vasica despite the wide studies undertaken. This work reports the successful approach for production of vasicine by cell cultures of A. vasica. High and fast-growing leaf-derived cell culture was established from A. vasica. In the present study, elicitation as the yield enhancement strategy was developed by the addition of selected elicitor like methyl jasmonate (MeJ), chitosan, yeast extract, ascorbic acid, and sodium salicylate at optimized concentrations. This resulted in 0.45 and 0.39% (on dry weight basis) vasicine, which was 3.7 and 3.2-fold higher yield over the control cultures (0.121%) with 20 mu M MeJ and 50 mg l(-1) yeast extract treatment, respectively.