Evaluation of feeding and mixing conditions for fractional precipitation of paclitaxel from plant cell cultures

Optimization of the basal medium for improving production and secretion of taxanes from suspension cell culture of Taxus baccata L

Background and purpose of the study

Taxol is one of the most effective anticancer drugs that isolated from Taxus sp. due to the slow growth of Taxus trees and low concentration of Taxol in the tissues, the biotechnological approaches especially plant cell culture have been considered to produce Taxol in commercial scale.

Methods

We investigated the effects of basal medium type used in culture media on production of Taxol and other taxane compounds from cell suspension culture of T. baccata L. Briefly, five commonly basal media including Gamborg, Murashige and Skoog, Woody Plant, Schenk and Hildebrandt, and Driver and Kuniyuki medium were used for preparing separate suspension culture media. The intra- and extra-cellular yields of taxanes were analyzed by using HPLC after 21 days period of culturing.

Results

The yields of taxanes were significantly different for the cultures prepared by different basal media. Moreover, the effects of basal medium on the yield of products differed for varius taxane compounds. Maximum yields of Baccatin III (10.03 mgl^-1) and 10-deacetyl baccatin III (4.2 mgl^-1) were achieved from the DKW basal media, but the yield of Taxol was maximum (16.58 mgl^-1) in the WPM basal media. Furthermore, the secretion of taxanes from the cells into medium was also considerably affected by the type of basal medium. The maximum extra-cellular yield of Taxol (7.81 mgl^-1), Baccatin III (5.0 mgl^-1), and 10-deacetyl baccatin III (1.45 mgl^-1) were also obtained by using DKW basal medium that were significantly higher than those obtained from other culture media.