the effect of chitosan and chitin oligomers on gene expression and lignans production in linum album cell cultures

background: linum album, a herbaceous and medicinal plant, has been shown to accumulate anti-tumor podophyllotoxin (ptox) and related lignans. objective: in this study, we have verified the time-course of cell growth, lignan production in cells treated with chitosan and chitin oligomers. to study mechanism of chitosan and chitin oligomers action, expression of phenylalanine ammonio-lyase (pal), cinnamoyl-coa reductase (ccr), cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (cad) and pinoresinol lariciresinol reductase (plr) genes were investigated. methods: the cells were treated with 100 mg l-1 chitin and chitosan oligomers. cells were harvested for 5 days after elicitation. lignans quantified by reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (hplc). cell samples frozen with liquid n2 were used to elucidate the expression level of genes by quantitative pcr (qpcr). results: cells elicited with chitosan hexamer for 5 days yielded the highest amount of ptox (73.5 µg/g dry weight) and lariciresinol (96 µg/g dw) which were about 3-fold and 2-fold higher than control, respectively. the expression of genes by oligomers was increased, reaching a peak at 3 day after treatment. conclusion: chitosan and chitin oligomers up-regulate the production of ptox, by effecting on gene expression of ptox biosynthesis pathway.