Abstract
Artemisinin, an antimalarial compound, at 5 mg/40 ml, was transformed by cell suspension cultures of Catharanthus roseus (L.) G.Don and Lavandula officinalis L. into deoxyartemisinin with yields >78% (3.93 mg deoxyartemisinin from 5 mg artemisinin). Maximum conversion (78.6 and 78%) occurred after 6 and 7 days of adding artemisinin to 20 and 9 days old cultures of C. roseus and L. officinalis, respectively. The procedure was scaled up by and 500 mg artemisinin was transformed into 390 mg deoxyartemisinin. Addition of artemisinin at the beginning of the culture cycle resulted in >50% reduction in dry biomass production with no bioconversion. Conversion of artemisinin occurred intracellularly followed by leaching of the product into the medium.
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Acknowledgements
We are thankful to Director CIMAP, Lucknow, for providing the necessary facilities and constant encouragement to carry out this work. The work is carried out under a CSIR network programme (NWP-09) on “Chemical and Biological Transformations of Plant Compounds for Production of Value-added Products of Therapeutic/Aroma Value”.
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Patel, S., Gaur, R., Verma, P. et al. Biotransformation of artemisinin using cell suspension cultures of Catharanthus roseus (L.) G.Don and Lavandula officinalis L.. Biotechnol Lett 32, 1167–1171 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-010-0263-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10529-010-0263-3