Influence of different strains of Agrobacterium rhizogenes on hairy root induction and production of alizarin and purpurin in Rubia akane Nakai

Abstract

Different Agrobacterium rhizogenes strains were tested to investigate the ability for transformation and production of secondary metabolites in Rubia akane Nakai. All the strains of A. rhizogenes (13333, 15834, R1000, R1200 and R1601) used in this study were able to produce hairy roots. The strain R1601 performed the highest infection frequency (85.6 %) along with the highest number of hairy roots (5.3) per explant and root length (1.6 cm). The growth and anthraquinone (alizarin and purpurin) production in each hairy root of R. akane from infection by five different A. rhizogenes was investigated. The highest growth (11.1g dry wt/l) and production of alizarin (4.3 mg/g D.W.) and purpurin (4.9 mg/g D.W.) was found in R1601. The selection of an effective A. rhizogenes strain for the production of transformed root cultures is important, and must be determined for further experiment.