Enhanced Production of Aloe Mannan Using Plant Biotechnology

Abstract

Plant tissue culture is a promising technology, especially for the multiplication and production of novel and improved plants species and for an increased biosynthesis of products of industrial and medicinal value from vegetative resource. The development of a callus route was availed to investigate the in vitro plants for enhanced production of the bioactive polysaccharide acemannan in Aloe barbadensis plants. 8 mg/L NAA and 1.5 mg/L BAP with four different carbon sources (sucrose, mannose, glucose and galactose) and five concentrations (2, 3, 4, 5 and 6%) and kept in dark conditions for 1 month. The production media and light conditions played a vital role to increase the acemannan levels in stress conditions. The investigation revealed quite interesting results as the acemannan yield increases several fold in the in vitro regenerated callus cultures and Aloe barbadensis plant extracts analyzed for acemannan content by HPLC. Cultures incubated in media having 3 % mannose sugar produced the highest concentration of acemannan i.e 0.95 mg/mL, which revealed a remarkable enhancement of acemannan production as compared to the in vivo production in Aloe vera plant in soil conditions giving yield of 0.43 mg/mL acemannan. Cultures in media having 3% sucrose only increased 2% production of this compound in vitro giving 0.44 mg/mL yield. On the contrary, when glucose and galactose were added in the culture media the yield of acemannan was suppressed in all the tested concentrations.