In vitro culture development and polyphenolics production of Artemisia alba Turra

Artemisia alba Turra is an aromatic plant, characterized by a high variability of the terpenoid profile of its essential oil. In previous research, in vitro shoots of the plant were developed, aiming at elucidation of the effects of plant growth regulators on essential oil production. Though less information is available in literature regarding the non-volatile components of the plant, a number of works report on the presence of compounds with coumarin, flavonoid and sesquiterpene structure which might attribute to the pharmacological activity of the plant. In the present work, different lines of differentiated and non-differentiated in vitro cultures of the plant have been developed in solid and liquid media. The potential of these lines to produce compounds with phenolic and flavonoid structure has been studied. In differentiated shoot cultures, low benzyl adenine (BA) concentration alone or in combination with different indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) concentrations increased the polyphenolic levels as compared with plant growth regulators free control, as well with media with high BA alone or combined with IBA. The content of these compounds was also low when IBA was applied alone. In non-differentiated cell aggregate cultures, 1naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) in combination with BA significantly increased polyphenolics as compared with IBA. Observations on the morphology of the aggregates formed in the two media suggested that the more compact structure and larger size of aggregates as a result of NAA supplementation might be decisive for the higher polyphenolics productivity, as compared with IBA.