Paclitaxel-producing fungal endophyte stimulates the accumulation of taxoids in suspension cultures of Taxus cuspidate

Fusarium mairei, a paclitaxel-producing fungal endophyte, its effects on taxoid synthesis in Taxus cells were investigated via adding the fungal endophyte culture supernatants (FECS) to the suspension cultures of Taxus cuspidata. The concentration of FECS was determined on its total carbohydrate. When 100 mL of Taxus cell suspension cultures were treated with several dosages of FECS (4, 6 and 8 g) at day10, the cultures treated with 6 g FECS produced the highest yield of paclitaxel (5.84 mg L−1), which was 1.8-fold the yield from controls (3.14 mg L−1). The major elicitor element in FECS was an oligosaccharide of 2 kDa. In addition, the cultures treated with 6 g FECS resulted in 25.86 mg L−1 of the precursor 10-deacetylbaccatin III (10-DAB) accumulation, which was 11 times that of control cultures (2.32 mg L−1), and 4.7 times higher than that of cultures treated with 200 μM methyl jasmonate (MJ) (5.43 mg L−1). These results indicate that FECS favors to stimulate 10-DAB accumulation more effectively than paclitaxel accumulation.