Jose Condori

Induced biosynthesis of resveratrol and the prenylated stilbenoids arachidin-1 and arachidin-3 in hairy root cultures of peanut: effects of culture medium and growth stage.

Previously, we have shown that hairy root cultures of peanut provide a controlled, sustainable and scalable production system that can be induced to produce stilbenoids. However to leverage peanut hairy roots to study the biosynthesis of this polyphenolic biosynthetic pathway, growing conditions and elicitation kinetics of these tissue cultures must be defined and understood. To this end, a new peanut cv. Hull hairy root (line 3) that produces resveratrol and its prenylated analogues arachidin-1 and arachidin-3 upon sodium acetate-mediated elicitation was established. Two culture media were compared for impact on root growth and stilbenoid biosynthesis/secretion. The levels of ammonium, nitrate, phosphate and residual sugars were monitored along growth and elicitation period. A modified MS (MSV) medium resulted in higher root biomass when compared to B5 medium. The stilbenoid profile after elicitation varied depending on the age of the culture (6, 9, 12, and 15-day old). After elicitation at day 9 (exponential growth in MSV medium), over 90% of the total resveratrol, arachidin-1 and arachidin-3 accumulated in the medium. Our studies demonstrate the benefits of the hairy root culture system to study the biosynthesis of stilbenoids including valuable prenylated polyphenolic compounds.

Selection of reference genes for qPCR in hairy root cultures of peanut

BackgroundHairy root cultures produced via Agrobacterium rhizogenes-mediated transformation have emerged as practical biological models to elucidate the biosynthesis of specialized metabolites. To effectively understand the expression patterns of the genes involved in the metabolic pathways of these compounds, reference genes need to be systematically validated under specific experimental conditions as established by the MIQE (Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative Real-Time PCR Experiments) guidelines. In the present report we describe the first validation of reference genes for RT-qPCR in hairy root cultures of peanut which produce stilbenoids upon elicitor treatments.ResultsA total of 21 candidate reference genes were evaluated. Nineteen genes were selected based on previous qPCR studies in plants and two were from the T-DNAs transferred from A. rhizogenes. Nucleotide sequences of peanut candidate genes were obtained using their homologous sequences in Arabidopsis. To identify the suitable primers, calibration curves were obtained for each candidate reference gene. After data analysis, 12 candidate genes meeting standard efficiency criteria were selected. The expression stability of these genes was analyzed using geNorm and NormFinder algorithms and a ranking was established based on expression stability of the genes. Candidate reference gene expression was shown to have less variation in methyl jasmonate (MeJA) treated root cultures than those treated with sodium acetate (NaOAc).ConclusionsThis work constitutes the first effort to validate reference genes for RT-qPCR in hairy roots. While these genes were selected under conditions of NaOAc and MeJA treatment, we anticipate these genes to provide good targets for reference genes for hairy roots under a variety of stress conditions. The lead reference genes were a gene encoding for a TATA box binding protein (TBP2) and a gene encoding a ribosomal protein (RPL8C). A commonly used reference gene GAPDH showed low stability of expression suggesting that its use may lead to inaccurate gene expression profiles when used for data normalization in stress-stimulated hairy roots. Likewise the A. rhizogenes transgene rolC showed less expression stability than GAPDH. This study proposes that a minimum of two reference genes should be used for a normalization procedure in gene expression profiling using elicited hairy roots.

Enhanced Production of Resveratrol, Piceatannol, Arachidin-1, and Arachidin-3 in Hairy Root Cultures of Peanut Co-treated with Methyl Jasmonate and Cyclodextrin

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea) produces stilbenoids upon exposure to abiotic and biotic stresses. Among these compounds, the prenylated stilbenoids arachidin-1 and arachidin-3 have shown diverse biological activities with potential applications in human health. These compounds exhibit higher or novel biological activities in vitro when compared to their nonprenylated analogues piceatannol and resveratrol, respectively. However, assessment of these bioactivities in vivo has been challenging because of their limited availability. In this study, hairy root cultures of peanut were induced to produce stilbenoids upon treatment with elicitors. Co-treatment with 100 μM methyl jasmonate (MeJA) and 9 g/L methyl-β-cyclodextrin (CD) led to sustained high levels of resveratrol, piceatannol, arachidin-1, and arachidin-3 in the culture medium when compared to other elicitor treatments. The average yields of arachidin-1 and arachidin-3 were 56 and 148 mg/L, respectively, after co-treatment with MeJA and CD. Furthermore, MeJA and CD had a synergistic effect on resveratrol synthase gene expression, which could explain the higher yield of resveratrol when compared to treatment with either MeJA or CD alone. Peanut hairy root cultures were shown to be a controlled and sustainable axenic system for the production of the diverse types of biologically active stilbenoids.

Bioprocess and bioreactor: next generation technology for production of potential plant-based antidiabetic and antioxidant molecules.

Globally, diabetes and obesity are two of the most common metabolic diseases of the 21(st) century. Increasingly, not only adults but children and adolescents are being affected. New approaches are needed to prevent and treat these disorders and to reduce the impact of associated disease-related complications. Industrial-scale production using plant-root cultures can produce quantities and quality of inexpensive bioactive small molecules with nutraceutical and pharmaceutical properties. Using this approach, and targeting these diseases, a next generation approach to tackling this emerging global health crisis may be developed. Adventitious roots cultured in bioreactors under controlled and reproducible conditions have been shown effective for production of natural products. The liquid-phase airlift bioreactor in particular has been used successfully for culturing roots on an industrial-scale and thus may provide an economical production platform for expressing promising plant-based antidiabetic and antioxidant molecules. This review focuses on a next-generation, scalable, bioprocessing approach for adventitious and hairy root cultures that are a pesticide-free, seasonally-independent, plant-based source of three molecules that have shown promise for the therapeutic management of diabetes and obesity: corosolic acid, resveratrol and ginsenosides.

Quality Assessment of Recombinant Proteins Produced in Plants

Plant-based expression technologies for recombinant proteins have begun to receive acceptance for pharmaceuticals and other commercial markets. Protein products derived from plants offer safer, more cost-effective, and less capital-intensive alternatives to traditional manufacturing systems using microbial fermentation or animal cell culture bioreactors. Moreover, plants are now known to be capable of expressing bioactive proteins from a diverse array of species including animals and humans. Methods development to assess the quality and performance of proteins manufactured in plants are essential to support the QA/QC demands as plant-produced protein products transition to the commercial marketplace. Within the pharmaceutical arena, process validation and acceptance criteria for biological products must comply with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and ICH Q6B guidelines in order to initiate the regulatory approval process. Detailed product specifications will also need to be developed and validated for plant-made proteins for the bioenergy, food, chemical synthesis, or research reagent markets.We have, therefore, developed assessment methods for important qualitative and quantitative parameters of the products and the manufacturing methods utilized in plant-based production systems. In this chapter, we describe a number of procedures to validate product identity and characteristics including mass analyses, antibody cross-reactivity, N-terminal sequencing, and bioactivity. We also address methods for routine assessment of yield, recovery, and purity. The methods presented are those developed for the synthesis and recovery of the avian cytokine, chicken interleukin-12 (ChIL-12), produced in the leaves of Nicotiana benthamiana. The ChIL-12 protein used as a model for this chapter includes a C-terminal histidine epitope (HIS-tag) and, thus, these methods may be directly applicable to other HIS-tagged proteins produced in plants. However, the overall strategy presented using the ChIL-12(HIS) example should provide the basis of standard procedures for assessing the quality of other plant-based protein products and manufacturing systems.

Neuroprotective Effect of Peanut Hairy Root Extract Against Oxidative Stress in PC12 Derived Neurons

Oxidative stress resulting in neurodegeneration in specific areas of the brain leading to disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) has been well documented. A specific treatment, however, that can address oxidative stress and thus arrest the progression of PD is unavailable to date. In the present study, using neuronally differentiated rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells, a well-established model for studying neuroprotection, we have investigated the protective efficiency of a peanut hairy root extract (PHRE) consisting of resveratrol and other natural resveratrol analogs on hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-induced neurodegeneration. PHRE is a highly defined and stilbenoid enriched product obtained from elicited-peanut hairy root cultures. PC12-derived neurons were treated with 300 μM H2O2 to expose them to oxidative stress. The cells underwent marked degeneration as determined by characteristic morphological features of degeneration and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assay. Pretreatment with PHRE containing 15 μM of resveratrol and additional resveratrol analogs attenuated hydrogen peroxide-induced cytotoxicity of PC12 neurons. Even at 20 or 30 μM concentration, however, synthetic/commercial resveratrol alone did not protect the PC12 neurons from the H2O2 induced neurodegeneration that matched the level of protection provided by PHRE. Our results suggest that PHRE derived resveratrol along with other constituents in the extract have more potential as neuroprotectant than the synthetic/commercial resveratrol alone to prevent oxidative stress-induced cell death. INTRODUCTION The hallmark of Parkinson’s disease is the selective and progressive degeneration of the dopaminergic (DA) neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (de Lau et al., 2006). Among the many causes including genetic and environmental factors, oxidative stress is reported to be one of the major causes leading to PD (Abou-Sleiman et al., 2006; Jenner and Olanow, 1998). Oxidative stress occurs due to excessive exposure to reactive oxygen species (ROS) which can lead to impaired cellular functions and cell death (Halliwell, 2001). Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a common strong oxidant, and is also one of the major reactive oxygen species (ROS) which is used in in vitro models to create oxidative stress and toxicity (Stadtman and Berlett, 1991). The rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells can be differentiated into neurons with nerve growth factor (NGF) (Gunning et al., 1981). PC12 cells were used by us to determine if NGF-coupled nanotubes could deliver NGF to these cells and differentiate them into neurons (Xie et al., 2008). PC12-derived neurons have been used routinely as a dopaminergic neuronal model because the differentiated PC12 cells syn-the Prabhu et al.: Neuroprotective Effect of Peanut Hairy Root Extract Against Oxid