Impact of Culture Conditions on Alkaloid Production from Undifferentiated Cell Suspension Cultures of Egyptian Henbane

The effect of medium type and strength, different concentrations and combinations of auxin and cytokinin (NAA and BA), light and inoculums density on biomass increase and total alkaloid accumulation from suspension cultures of Hyoscyamus muticus were investigated. Callus cultures of H. muticus have been established from leaf segments cultured on Murashige and Skoogʹs (MS) medium supplemented with 3% sucrose and 0.5 mg/l each of BA and NAA. Full strength MS medium was the best for nourishing the growth of Hyoscyamus cell cultures. The equal combination ratios between BA and NAA at 1.0 mg/l gave the highest incidence of biomass accumulation and alkaloid production. Although, culture grown under light condition was higher in their growth rate than that grown in dark (0.20 and 0.11 d-1 respectively), the alkaloid content was relatively higher under dark culture condition (42.5 mg/gdw). Initial inoculum densities were investigated regarding their effect on cell growth of H. muticus cell cultures. The low inoculum cell suspension cultures (25 g fw/l) presented a shortest doubling time (2.93 d), while those obtained with a high inoculum (100 g fw/l) reached 13.47 day. At, initial inoculum density of 50 g fw/l, the highest dry cell weight and alkaloid content (14.25 g/l and 37.2 mg/gdw respectively) was attained