Effect of Salicylic Acid on the Production of Anthracene Derivatives in the Culture ofRheum palmatum L.in vitro

Overview

Elicitation is a method making use of protective mechanisms of plants to increase the production ofsecondary metabolites in plants and cultures in vitro .Salicylic acid acts in plants as an inducer ofthe expression of protective proteins and it can be thus included into biotic elicitors.That is why thepresent paper examined the effects of five concentrations of salicylic acid on the production ofanthracene derivatives by a three-year and a nine-year old culture derived from the root of the intactplant Rheumpalmatum L.The culture was cultivated on Murashige-Skoog medium with an additionof 10 mg.l –1 of α -naphthylacetic acid.It follwos from the results that increase in production afterelicitation is higher in the three-year old culture than in the nine-year old one and elicitation ofsuspension culture is more successful than elicitation of callus culture.The maximal content ofanthracene derivatives (1.418 %),detected by a photometric essay according to PhBS 4,wasdemonstrated after a 48-hour action of 1 mM aqueous solution of salicylic acid,when productionwas increased by 101 %in comparison with the control.

Key words:
Rheum palmatum L.–callus and suspension culture – anthracene derivatives –elicitation –salicylic acid