Production of antioxidant compounds by culture of Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer hairy roots: I. Enhanced production of secondary metabolite in hairy root cultures by elicitation.

Ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer) hairy root cultures, established by infecting ginseng root discs with Agrobacterium rhizogenes, were used for secondary metabolite production. In this study, several elicitors [salicylic acid (SA), acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), yeast elicitor, and bacterial elicitor] were used to improve the productivity of useful metabolite in P. ginseng hairy root cultures. In SA elicitation, total ginseng saponin content increased slightly at lower elicitor dosages (0.1 to 0.5 mM). Also, the use of ASA as an elicitor resulted in the inhibition of biomass growth and an increase in total ginseng saponin content at every elicitor dosage (0.1 to 1.0 mM) by about 1.1 times. With yeast elicitor addition, hairy root growth was inhibited about 0.8-fold on a dry weight basis compared to the control, but total ginseng saponin content increased by about 1.17 times when compared to the control. The bacterial elicitor showed a slight inhibition of biomass growth, but total ginseng saponin content increased by about 1.23 times upon the addition of 1 mL.