Taxol® and baccatin III production in suspension cultures of Taxus baccata and Taxus wallichiana in an airlift bioreactor

Suspension cultures of Taxus baccata var. fastigiata and Taxus wallichiana were grown in a 20-L airlift bioreactor running for 28 days in a batch mode, and their growth rate and capacity to accumulate taxol® and baccatin III were measured. T. wallichiana culture showed a greater accumulation of taxol® and baccatin III than T. baccata culture (factor of 2.0 and 1.3, respectively) when both Taxussuspension cultures were in the highest productive state (from day 24 to day 28). This difference was mainly due to the higher capacity of T. wallichiana cells to synthesise the taxanes considered; another contributory factor was an increase in biomass in T. wallichianaculture relative to T. baccataculture. The highest yields of taxol® (21.04 mg L−1) and baccatin III (25.67 mg L−1) achieved for T. wallichianaculture exceeded those reported for other Taxus sp. suspension cultures. Approximately 40 % of the taxol® and 67 % of the baccatin III were released into the extracellular medium. Paclitaxel is the generic name for taxol®, which is a registered trademark of Bristol-Myers Squibb.