Production of the secondary metabolites in Salvia miltiorrhiza in vitro cultures
Abstract
Salvia miltiorrhiza (family: Lamiaceae) is well known as Danshen in traditional Chinese medicine.
It is used mainly in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. A number of pharmacological
studies have proved its wide spectrum of pharmacological activities: cardiovascular
protective effect, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective, antimicrobial and anticancer.
The roots of S. miltiorrhiza contain two main groups of active compounds: phenolic
constituents and abietane-type diterpenoids (tanshinones). The studies on S. miltiorrhiza
in vitro cultures have been focused on secondary metabolites production for over two decades.
Both cultures, undifferentiated and transformed, are able to synthesize the active
compounds but their content is low. The elicitation treatment significantly enhances the
metabolites content at a level close or much higher than in the intact plants. The induction
effect depends on many factors: the kind and dose of the elicitor, the type of the
culture and its susceptibility, time and ways of administration, the growth state of tissues
etc. The yeast extract and some heavy metal ions effectively induce tanshinones biosynthesis
such as cryptotanshinone, whereas methyl jasmonate stimulate mainly phenolic
compounds – lithospermic acid B and demonstrated limited effect on diterpenoids accumulation.
Nowadays, the much attention has been paid to the biosynthetic pathways and
genes including expression profiling and cloning. The recognition of the genes pathways
and the transcription factors (including the signal transduction steps level) will be helpful in better understanding of the regulatory mechanism and improvement of the production
of the interesting secondary metabolites and eventually appliance in the industry.