RESUMO
Brugmansia candida (syn. Datura candida) is a South American native plant that produces tropane alkaloids. Hyoscyamine, 6ß-hydroxyhyoscyamine (anisodamine), and scopolamine are the most important ones due to their anticholinergic activity. These bioactive compounds have been historically and widely applied in medicine and their demand is continuous. Their chemical synthesis is costly and complex, and thereby, these alkaloids are industrially produced from natural producer plants. The production of these secondary metabolites by plant in vitro cultures such as hairy roots presents certain advantages over the natural source and chemical synthesis. It is well known that hairy roots produced by Agrobacterium rhizogenes infection are fast-growing cultures, genetically stable and able to grow in hormone-free media. Additionally, recent progress achieved in the scaling up of hairy root cultures makes this technology an attractive tool for industrial processes. This chapter is focused on the methods for the induction and establishment of B. candida hairy roots. In addition, the scaling up of hairy root cultures in bioreactors and tropane alkaloid analysis is discussed.
Assuntos
Biotecnologia/métodos , Datura/fisiologia , Raízes de Plantas/fisiologia , Tropanos/metabolismo , Agrobacterium/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Reatores Biológicos , Biotecnologia/instrumentação , Cromatografia Líquida de Alta Pressão/métodos , Técnicas de Cultura/instrumentação , Técnicas de Cultura/métodos , DNA de Plantas/genética , DNA de Plantas/isolamento & purificação , Datura/genética , Datura/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Datura/microbiologia , Desenho de Equipamento , Melhoramento Vegetal/métodos , Raízes de Plantas/genética , Raízes de Plantas/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Raízes de Plantas/microbiologia , Plantas Geneticamente Modificadas/genética , Plantas Geneticamente Modificadas/crescimento & desenvolvimento , Plantas Geneticamente Modificadas/fisiologia , Esterilização/métodos , Tropanos/análise , Tropanos/isolamento & purificaçãoRESUMO
Heterogeneous distribution of resources in most plant populations results in a mosaic of plant physiological responses tending to maximize plant fitness. This includes plant responses to trophic interactions such as herbivory and mycorrhizal symbiosis which are concurrent in most plants. We explored fitness costs of 50% manual defoliation and mycorrhizal inoculation in Datura stramonium at different light availability and soil fertility environments in a greenhouse experiment. Overall, we showed that non-inoculated and mycorrhiza-inoculated plants did not suffer from 50% manual defoliation in all the tested combinations of light availability and soil fertility treatments, while soil nutrients and light availability predominately affected plant responses to the mycorrhizal inoculation. Fifty percent defoliation had a direct negative effect on reproductive traits whereas mycorrhiza-inoculated plants produced larger flowers than non-inoculated plants when light was not a limiting factor. Although D. stramonium is a facultative selfing species, other investigations had shown clear advantages of cross-pollination in this species; therefore, the effects of mycorrhizal inoculation on flower size observed in this study open new lines of inquiry for our understanding of plant responses to trophic interactions. Also in this study, we detected shifts in the limiting resources affecting plant responses to trophic interactions.