Production of flavonoid compounds in cell cultures of Ficus deltoidea as influenced by medium composition.

Manipulation of the nutrient medium is the most fundamental approach in improving the yield of secondary metabolites in plant cell cultures. The main aim of this study was to examine the effects of four different carbon sources (sucrose, glucose, fructose and galactose) and plant growth regulators (2,4 -D, NAA, BAP and kinetin) on three types of flavonoid accumulation: rutin, quercetin and naringenin in cell cultures of Ficus deltoidea. Analysis using High Perfor- mance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) revealed that the concentration of rutin was enhanced by 2 -fold in the culture enriched with either glucose or fructose as compared to the control whilst the concentration of naringenin (0.92 ± 0.35 mg/g DW) was improved by almost 19 times when glucose served as the sole carbon source. In the study of the effects of plant growth regulators, the maximum production of rutin (39.13 ± 8.38 mg/g DW) was achieved in the medium suppl e- mented with 10.74 µM of Naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA). The maximum production of quercetin (3.92 ± 0.44 mg/g DW) and naringenin (8.65 ± 3.03 mg/g DW) was detected in the cultures with 4.65 µM kinetin, which was 5 and 170 times higher than the control, respectively. Comparatively, auxins gave a higher p roduction in rutin whereas cytokinins showed a moderate production of all the three flavonoids.