Pueraria tuberosa contains a wide range of bioactive compounds, including polyphenols, alkaloids, and phytosterols, which make it valuable to the pharmaceutical and food industries. Elicitor compounds trigger the defense mechanisms in plants and are widely used to increase the yield of bioactive molecules in in vitro cultures. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of different concentrations of biotic elicitors such as yeast extract (YE), pectin (PEC), and alginate (ALG) on growth, antioxidant activity, and metabolite accumulation in in vitro propagated shoots of P. tuberosa. The elicitors applied to shoot cultures of P. tuberosa significantly increased biomass (shoot number, fresh weight, and dry weight), and metabolites such as protein, carbohydrates, chlorophyll, total phenol (TP), and total flavonoid (TF) contents, as well as antioxidant activity compared to untreated control. Biomass, TP, and TF contents, as well as antioxidant activity, were most significant in cultures treated with 100 mg/L PEC. In contrast, chlorophyll, protein, and carbohydrate increased most in cultures treated with 200 mg/L ALG. Application of 100 mg/L of PEC led to the accumulation of high amounts of isoflavonoids including puerarin (220.69 μg/g), daidzin (2935.55 μg/g), genistin (5612 μg/g), daidzein (479.81 μg/g), and biochanin-A (111.511 μg/g) as analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Total isoflavonoids content of 100 mg/L PEC treated shoots was obtained as 9359.56 μg/g, 1.68-fold higher than in vitro propagated shoots without elicitors (5573.13 μg/g) and 2.77-fold higher than shoots of the mother plant (3380.17 μg/g). The elicitor concentrations were optimized as 200 mg/L YE, 100 mg/L PEC, and 200 mg/L ALG. Overall, this study showed that the application of different biotic elicitors resulted in better growth, antioxidant activity, and accumulation of metabolites in P. tuberosa, which could lead to obtaining phytopharmaceutical advantages in the future.

Cicer arietinum L. (Bengal gram, chickpea) is one of the major pulse crops and an important part of traditional diets in Asia, Africa, and South America. The present study was conducted to determine the changes in total isoflavones during sprouting (0, 3, and 7 days) along with the effect of two precursor supplementations, p-coumaric acid (p-CA) and L-phenylalanine (Phe), in C. arietinum. It was observed that increasing sprouting time up to the seventh day resulted in ≈1282 mg 100 g⁻¹ isoflavones, which is approximately eight times higher than chickpea seeds. The supplementation of Phe did not affect the total length of sprouts, whereas the supplementation of p-CA resulted in stunted sprouts. On the third day of supplementation with p-CA (250 mg L⁻¹), the increase in the total phenolic content (TPC) (80%), daidzein (152%), and genistin (158%) contents were observed, and further extending the supplementation reduced the growth of sprouts. On the seventh day of supplementation with Phe (500 mg L⁻¹), the increase in TPC by 43% and genistin content by 74% was observed compared with non-treated sprouts; however, the total isoflavones content was found to be 1212 mg 100 g⁻¹. The increased TPC was positively correlated with the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging activity (r = 0.787) and ferric-reducing antioxidant potential (FRAP) (r = 0.676) activity. This study suggests that chickpea sprouts enriched in TPC and antioxidants can be produced by the appropriate quantity of precursor supplementation on a particular day. The results indicated major changes in the phytochemical content, especially daidzein and genistin. It was also concluded that the consumption of 100 g of seventh-day sprouts provided eight times higher amounts of isoflavones in comparison to chickpea seeds.

Background: Plant in vitro culture systems serve as a useful tool to study the regulatory routes which are related to plant growth and survival under altered environmental conditions.Methods: Callus culture of Suaeda monoica and Suaeda nudiflora were established for studying the salt tolerance mechanism at the cellular level. Calli of both the species were induced from seedling’s epicotyls on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with a different combination of auxin and cytokinins. A sequential stress treatment was given to the callus of both the species. The growth rate of callus, osmolytes and antioxidant activities was investigated after 28 days. A control callus was maintained in each experiment without any salt in the growth medium.Results: Efficient callus regeneration was obtained by exposing the callus tissue to MS medium supplemented with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D, 1.0 mg/l), benzylaminopurine (BAP, 0.5 mg/l) and 2,4-D (0.5 mg/l), kinetin (Kn, 0.25 mg/l) for S. monoica and S. nudiflora, respectively. A substantial increase was observed in proline content and a strong positive correlation was found between the total phenolic content and antioxidant activity under increasing salt concentrations.Conclusion: This is the first report on S. monoica callus regeneration. The specific cell lines which were generated through callus culture under sequential saline conditions provide a promising foundation for studying salinity induced expression of enzymes. Further comparison of transcriptomic profiles of control and salt-treated callus cultures can serve as a promising system for the detection of genes responsible for the change in expression under salt stress.