Effect on physical endurance of saponin in transgenic hairy roots of Panax vietnamensis Ha et Grushv.

Abstract

Medicinal plants have been widely explored for hairy root culture and their secondary metabolites. Hairy root is the potential source of natural compounds for generating pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food products. The current study focuses on root biomass production using transgenic technology whichl contribute to yield major sources of root biomass of Ngoc Linh ginseng. There are several advantages of culturing Ngoc Linh ginseng hairy roots in reducing drawbacks of micropropagation system such as low yield and plant growth regulator residues. In this study, Agrobacterium rhizogenes strain (ATCC 15834) mediated transgenic hairy roots of Ngoc Linh ginseng were rapidly multiplied in 3 liter bioreactor (Korea) containing 1.5 liters of SH medium and 50 g/l sucrose. Results indicated that transgenic hairy roots (with initiate fresh weight of 7.5 g) reached the maximum biomass yield of approximately 5 g dried weight with the total saponin content of 0.72% after 8 weeks of culture. Qualitative and quantitative analyses also showed that the hairy roots consisted of the three main saponin (Rg1, Rb1 and MR2). Among the two dose treatments (1.38 g/kg and 2.76 g/kg) and the control treatment (distill water), mice administered the extract from transgenic hairy root for 7 days continuously at the dose of 1.38 g/kg could prolong the swimming time up to 160.36 min and swimming time rate 455.71%, significantly higher when compared with the other treatment and the control. This result indicated that the transgenic hairy root of Ngoc Linh gingseng cultured in vitro has the enhancing effect on physical endurance of the animals tested.