ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Metabolism and Chemodiversity
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2025.1611849
This article is part of the Research TopicEvolution, Accumulation and Metabolic Engineering of Plant Secondary MetabolitesView all 3 articles
Impact of elicitors and light on biosynthesis of sesquiterpene lactones in tissue culture of Arnica montana and their its variety Arbo
Provisionally accepted- 1Wroclaw Medical University, Wrocław, Poland
- 2University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Silesian, Poland
- 3Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Wrocław, Silesian, Poland
- 4Wrocław University of Technology, Wrocław, Silesian, Poland
- 5Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław, Silesian, Poland
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Arnica montana is a popular medicinal plant known for the sesquiterpene lactones (SLs) found in its flowers, which are valuable ingredients in pharmacology and cosmetology. We present an alternative method for acquiring these metabolites by the application of the plant in vitro culture method of the species A. montana, representing the dihydrohelenalin type and the Arbo variety, richer in helenalin. Employing high-resolution liquid chromatography with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF-MS) to determine SL content facilitated the identification of optimal culture conditions. On the basic Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium without growth regulators, an increase in light intensity had a positive effect, stimulating SLs biosynthesis. The highest content of SLs was confirmed in in vitro cultured leaves of both taxa, particularly at the highest tested light intensity of 150 µmol m-2 s-1 (A. montana: 32.57 mg/g DW; A. montana ‘Arbo’: 73.90 mg/g DW). Chitosan, jasmonic acid (JA), and red light alter the spectrum of the present SLs, supporting helenalin derivatives formation. By expanding the culture's scale, the bioreactor efficiency was obtained at 4025.02 mg SL per 100 g dry leaf weight, which means that the in vitro procedure can be adapted to receive these compounds.
Keywords: sesquiterpene lactones biosynthesis, Helenalin, Dihydrohelenalin, Arnica montana, in vitro culture, elicitors, bioreactor
Received: 14 Apr 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Parafiniuk, Kromer, Fleszar, Wróblewska, Wisniewski and Gamian. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Agata Parafiniuk, Wroclaw Medical University, Wrocław, Poland
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