Pigment and Saikosoponin Production Through Bioreactor Culture of Carthamus tinctorius and Bupleurum falcatum

Traditional culture technology of medicinal plants mainly depends on the field culture, which has many problems. With progress of modern culture technology, it has become possible to produce valuable secondary metabolites from medicinal plants. In this paper, we discuss about the pigment and saikosaponin production from too medicinal plants, Carthamus tinctorius and Bupleurum falcatum, through bioreactor culture system. A two-stage bioreactor culture system was established for the production of yellow and red pigments and saikosaponins by cell suspension cultures of Carthamus tinctorius and Bupleurum falcatum. In Carthamus tinctorius, balloon type airlift bioreactors and column type airlift bioreactors were employed for the tell culture and for the pigment production, respectively. The greatest pigment production was obtained on White medium supplemented with 4 mg/L kinetin, high levels of sucrose concentration and photosynthetic photon flux. In Bupleurum falcatum, adventitious roots were cultured in balloon type airlift bioreactors and the root growth was greatest on SH medium containing 5 mg/L IBA and 0.2 mg/L kinetin. HPLC analysis showed that the contents of main active saikosaponins a, c, and d in adventitious roots were almost the same as those in field cultured root.