A rich source of potential bioactive compounds with anticancer activities by Catharanthus roseus cambium meristematic stem cell cultures

Abstract Ethnopharmacological importance Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don. is an important medicinal plant with rich sources of remarkable health benefits consisting more than 100 alkaloids and significant amounts of bioactive compounds, which have been widely used as a folk medicine for treatment of several pathologies. The aim of the study In the present study, we isolated and cultured innately undifferentiated cambium meristematic cells (CMCs), which were observed stable cell growth, enhancement of bioactive compounds from C.roseus . Materials and methods We attempted to determine the effect of association between time-course growth rates, bioactive compounds and terpenoids indole alkaloid (TIA) contents as well as antioxidant and anticancer efficacies of C. roseus CMC suspension culture treated by UV-C. Results The bioactive compounds, vincristine contents, and antioxidant power were noticed significantly higher in 60 min exposure at 5 cm distances and with the directly collected sample (T7). A similar trend has also been noticed from the anticancer activity. Demonstration of TIA accumulation was found higher at 5 min exposure, at 20 cm distances and 48 h of incubation (T21) and the result of TIA contents had the highest correlation effects of anticancer activities. Conclusion In the current study, we demonstrated that UV-C light could enhance the production of the essential compounds and bioactivities in the CMCs of C. roseus , and thus, C. roseus CMCs have the potential to serve as an industrial platform for the production of bioactive alkaloids and antioxidant, anticancer activity. Moreover, additional efforts should be made to irradiate CMC suspension cultures from C. roseus with UV-C to achieve better pharmacological profiles.