Bioactive metabolite production and stress-related hormones in Devil's claw cell suspension cultures grown in bioreactors.

In a previous report, we showed that cell cultures of Harpagophytum procumbens, a South African plant with high medicinal value, accumulate high amounts of anti-inflammatory phenylethanoid glycosides during cultivation in shake-flasks. The aim of the present study was to transfer the phenylethanoid biosynthetic process to a 3-L stirred tank reactor and a 1-L glass-column bioreactor (operated with pulsed aeration). We found that, with stepwise increases in aeration, the stirred tank reactor yielded similar productivities of verbascoside (the major phenylethanoid glycoside in the cells) to those reported for shake-flask cultures (55.68 vs. 54.78 mg verbascoside/L/day, respectively). Transfer in the pulse-aerated column reactor resulted in 165.42 mg verbascoside/L/day, one of the highest yields reported to date. Further, to evaluate the physiological status of the suspended cells in the bioreactors cultures, we examined their hormone levels and compared them to those of cells in shake-flask cultures. While indole-3-acetic acid levels did not differ significantly between the bioreactor and shake-flask cultures, there were considerable differences in their levels of abscisic, jasmonic, and salicylic acids. These results are discussed with respect to relative stress levels in the different cultivation systems.