Polyamine Elicitation of Quercetin and Rutin Production in Callus Cultures of Caper and Impact to Regeneration

Nowadays, efforts to produce high amounts of secondary metabolites with anticancer properties in plants have become remarkable studies of biotechnological approaches. Polyamines are known to have successful roles in plant metabolism and molecular signalling. The important point is to determine the type and concentration of polyamine suitable for the physiology of the plant. This study was carried out to examine the effects of different polyamine applications in callus culture of Caper (Capparis L.) plant on plant regeneration and the production of quercetin and rutin with anticancer properties. For this purpose, different varieties (spermine, spermidine, and putrescine) and concentrations (0.0, 0.5, and 1.0 mg/l) of polyamines and 2.0 mg/l 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) and 1.0 mg/l α-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) of plant growth regulators were added to the Murashige and Skoog (MS) culture medium. According to the results, the highest value in terms of callus induction was determined in 1.0 mg/l spermine, the highest value in plant regeneration was obtained in 0.5 mg/l spermine, and the highest quercetin and rutin accumulation were detected in 0.5 mg/l spermidine application. The regeneration and the amount of quercetin increased approximately 2-fold compared to the control group in the aforementioned polyamine (PA) applications. Our findings showed that spermine and spermidine proved more effective in the callus culture of Caper than putrescine, and the use of low-dose polyamines gave outstanding results. Therefore a particularly valuable finding obtained in this study is that polyamines can be used as an effective elicitor in the tissue culture of Caper plant.