Enhancement of Diosgenin Production in Dioscorea zingiberensis Cell Cultures by Oligosaccharides from Its Endophytic Fungus Fusarium oxysporum Dzf17.docVIP

Molecules 2011, 16, 10631-10644; doi:10.3390/molecules161210631 OPEN ACCESS molecules ISSN 1420-3049 /journal/molecules Article Enhancement of Diosgenin Production in Dioscorea zingiberensis Cell Cultures by Oligosaccharides from Its Endophytic Fungus Fusarium oxysporum Dzf17 Peiqin Li, Ziling Mao, Jingfeng Lou, Yan Li, Yan Mou, Shiqiong Lu, Youliang Peng and Ligang Zhou * Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agronomy and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: lgzhou@; Tel.: +86-10-6273-1199. Received: 16 November 2011; in revised form: 2 December 2011 /Accepted: 9 December 2011 / Published: 19 December 2011 Abstract: The effects of the oligosaccharides from the endophytic fungus Fusarium oxysporum Dzf17 as elicitors on diosgenin production in cell suspension cultures of its host Dioscorea zingiberensis were investigated. Three oligosaccharides, DP4, DP7 and DP10, were purified from the oligosaccharide fractions DP2-5, DP5-8 and DP8-12, respectively, which were prepared from the water-extracted mycelial polysaccharide of the endophytic fungus F. oxysporum Dzf17. When the cell cultures were treated with fraction DP5-8 at 20 mg/L on day 26 and harvested on day 32, the maximum diosgenin yield (2.187 mg/L) was achieved, which was 5.65-fold of control (0.387 mg/L). When oligosaccharides DP4, DP7 and DP10 were individually added to 26-day-old D. zingiberensis cell cultures at concentrations of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 mg/L in medium, DP7 at 6 mg/L was found to significantly enhance diosgenin production, with a yield of 3.202 mg/L, which was 8.27-fold of control. When the cell cultures were treated with DP7 twice on days 24 and 26, and harvested on day 30, both diosgenin content and yield were significantly increased and reached the maximums of 1.159 mg/g dw and