New Insight Into Justicidin B Production In Linum austriacum Tissue Cultures

Flax is one of the oldest crops widely grown for its oil, fiber content and food nutrients: omega-3 fatty acids, proteins and phenolic compounds (lignans). These last molecules exhibit numerous pharmacological activities: antioxidant, cytotoxic, antifungal, antiviral and phytoestrogenic. Furthermore, many studies have demonstrated that these compounds reduce the risk of certain cancers such as the breast, colon and prostate cancers. Due to the growing demand of these medically and nutritionally important metabolites, it is crucial to find sustainable alternative systems for large scale production. In vitro plant tissue cultures represent a solid strategy for the production of plant bioactive metabolites, which final yield can be potentially increased through the use of specific elicitors. Flax lignans belong to different classes such as podophyllotoxin-, justicidin B-, and secoisolaricilresinol-lignans and are differentially accumulated across flax species, which are more than 180. The aim of this research project is to exploit different flax species for improving lignans production in different in vitro cell and tissue cultures, namely cell suspensions, adventitious roots and hairy roots. To this purpose, several tissue cultures of different flax species were obtained and analysed for their phenol content, antioxidant capacity and for their metabolite and transcriptome profile. Moreover, the effect of some elicitors in enhancing secondary metabolites production was analysed and the more suitable flax species and tissue culture for each specific compound were selected for the scale up production in a bioreactor. *This work has been supported by Fondazione Cariplo, InFlaMe Project, grant n. 2016-0700.