Effects of Fungal Elicitors on Cell Growth and Artemisinin Accumulation in Hairy Root Cultures of Artemisia annua

The artemisinin accumulation in the hairy root cultures of Artemisia annua L. was enhanced via a treatment of three fungal elicitors separately ( Verticillium dahliae Kleb., Rhizopus stolonifer (Ehrenb. ex Fr.) Vuill and Colletotrichum dematium (Pers.) Grove). Among these three elicitors, V. dahliae had the highest inducing efficiency, but none of them manifests any noticeable effects on the cell growth of the hairy root cultures. The artemisinin content of the hairy root cultures treated with V. dahliae elicitor was 1.12 mg/g DW, which was 45% higher than the control (0.77 mg/g DW). The results showed that elicitation was dependent on the elicitor concentration, the incubation period and the physiological stage at which the hairy root cultures were treated. In addition, the authors found that for V. dahliae , the optimum concentration was 0.4 mg carbohydrate per millilitre medium, the strongest response of A. annua hairy root cultures to the elicitation was at the late exponential growth stage, and the highest artemisinin content of the hairy root cultures was on the 4th day post treatment.

Effects of Six Kinds of Fungal Elicitors on Growth of Dendrobium hybrida cultivar ‘088' Tissue Culture Seedlings

To optimize the technique of rapid propagation of Dendrobium hybrida seedlings and to explore a hormone-free tissue culture method for D.hybrida,six kinds of mycorrhizal fungi which were isolated from the wild orchids were made into fungal elicitors.These fungal elicitors were added into the DE medium with concentrations of 40,60 and 80 ml/L,respectively.After a 90-d culturing,the effects of fungal elicitors on the growth of D.hybrida cultivar ‘088＇ tissue culture seedlings were studied.The results showed that treatment 13（T13） extremely significantly increased the fresh weight,but other treatment groups had no significant effects.In addition,T1,T5,T9,T11 and T13 extremely significantly influenced the contents of chlorophyll a and chlorophyll a ＋ b.However,T1 and T11 had extremely significantly effect on the content of chlorophyll b.Combining the effects on fresh weight and chlorophyll content,it could be concluded T13（40 ml/L of Y05） has promoting effects on the growth of D.hybrida tissue culture seedlings.