Browsing by Subject "Phytosterols"

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    Bioactivity of phytosterols and their production in plant in vitro cultures
    (American Chemical Society, 2016-09-12) Almagro Romero, Lorena; Miras Moreno, Begoña; Pedreño García, María Ángeles; Sabater Jara, Ana Belén; Biología Vegetal
    Phytosterols are a kind of plant metabolite belonging to the triterpene family. These compounds are essential biomolecules for human health, and so they must be taken from foods. β-Sitosterol, campesterol, and stigmasterol are the main phytosterols found in plants. Phytosterols have beneficial effects on human health since they are able to reduce plasma cholesterol levels and have antiinflammatory, antidiabetic, and anticancer activities. However, there are many difficulties in obtaining them, since the levels of these compounds produced from plant raw materials are low and their chemical synthesis is not economically profitable for commercial exploitation. A biotechnological alternative for their production is the use of plant cell and hairy root cultures. This review is focused on the biosynthesis of phytosterols and their function in both plants and humans as well as the different biotechnological strategies to increase phytosterol biosynthesis. Special attention is given to describing new methodologies based on the use of recombinant DNA technology to increase the levels of phytosterols.
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    Cyclodextrins increase phytosterol and tocopherol levels in suspension cultured cells obtained from mung beans and safflower
    (Wiley, 2017-07-13) Tudela, Libertad Raquel; Almagro Romero, Lorena; Miras Moreno, Begoña; Pedreño García, María Ángeles; Sabater Jara, Ana Belén; Biología Vegetal
    In this work, suspension-cultured cells of mung beans and safflower were used in order to analyze the effect of methyl jasmonate and/or cyclodextrins, on bioactive compound production such as phytosterols and tocopherols. The results indicated that mung bean suspension-cultured cells produced higher amount of total phytosterols and tocopherols. In particular, mung bean suspension-cultured cells produced almost 220-fold higher levels of tocopherols than safflower suspension-cultured cells in the best conditions. However, while cyclodextrins were able to enhance extracellular production of phytosterols, in the case of tocopherols, they only increased their intracellular accumulation. Our results showed that mung bean cells could be used as a highly efficient system for the production of phytosterols and tocopherols which have a wide range of biological activities.
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    Effect of terbinafine on the biosynthetic pathway of isoprenoid compounds in carrot suspension cultured cells
    (Springer, 2018-04-21) Almagro Romero, Lorena; Miras Moreno, Begoña; Pedreño García, María Ángeles; Sabater Jara, Ana Belén; Biología Vegetal
    Plant sterols are essential components of membrane lipids, which contributing to their fluidity and permeability. Besides their cholesterol-lowering properties, they also have anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic and anticancer activities. Squalene, which is phytosterol precursor, is widely used in medicine, foods and cosmetics due to its anti-tumor, antioxidant and anti-aging activities. Nowadays, vegetable oils constitute the main sources of phytosterols and squalene, but their isolation and purification involve complex extraction protocols and high costs. In this work, Daucus carota cell cultures were used to evaluate the effect of cyclodextrins and terbinafine on the production and accumulation of squalene and phytosterols as well as the expression levels of squalene synthase and cycloartenol synthase genes. D. carota cell cultures were able to produce high levels of extracellular being phytosterols in the presence of cyclodextrins (12 mg/L), these compounds able to increase both the secretion and accumulation of phytosterols in the culture medium. Moreover, terbinafine induced a significant increase in intracellular squalene production, as seen after 168 h of treatment (497.0 ± 23.5 µg g dry weight−1) while its extracellular production only increased in the presence of cyclodextrins.The analysis of sqs and cas gene expression revealed that cyclodextrins did not induce genes encoding enzymes involved in the phytosterol biosynthetic pathway since the expression levels of sqs and cas genes in cyclodextrin-treated cells were lower than in control cells. The results, therefore, suggest that cyclodextrins were only able to release phytosterols from the cells to the extracellular medium, thus contributing to their acumulation. To sum up, D. carota cell cultures treated with cyclodextrins or terbinafine were able to produce high levels of phytosterols and squalene, respectively, and, therefore, these suspension-cultured cells of carrot constitute an alternative biotechnological system, which is at the same time more sustainable, economic and ecological for the production of these bioactive compounds.
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    Enhanced accumulation of phytosterols and phenolic compounds incyclodextrin-elicited cell suspension culture of Daucus carota
    (Elsevier, 2016-06-15) Almagro Romero, Lorena; Miras Moreno, Begoña; Pedreño García, María Ángeles; Sabater Jara, Ana Belén; Biología Vegetal
    Inthis work, suspension-culturedcells of Daucus carota wereusedto evaluate the effect of -cyclodextrins on the production of isoprenoid and phenolic compounds. The results showed that the phytosterols and phenolic compounds were accumulated in the extracellular medium (15100 g L−1 and 477.46 g L−1, respectively) in the presence of cyclodextrins. Unlike the phytosterol and phenolic compound content, -carotene (1138.03 g L−1), lutein (25949.54 g L−1) and -tocopherol (8063.82 g L−1) chlorophyll a (1625.13 g L−1) and b (9.958 (9958.33 g L−1) were mainly accumulated inside the cells. Therefore, cyclodextrins were able to induce the cytosolic mevalonate pathway, increasing the biosynthesis of phytosterols and phenolic compounds, and accumulate them outside the cells. However, in the absence of these cyclic oligosaccharidic elicitors, carrot cells mainly accumulated carotenoids through the methylerythritol 4-phosphate pathway. Therefore, the use of cyclodextrins would allow the extracellular accumulation of both phytosterols andphenolic compounds bydiverting the carbonflux towards the cytosolicmevalonate/phenylpropanoid pathway.
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    New strategies for the use of Linum usitatissimum cell factories for the production of bioactive compounds
    (Elsevier, 2015-12-18) Almagro Romero, Lorena; Belchí Navarro, Sarai; Sánchez-Pujante, Pedro Joaquín; Pedreño García, María Ángeles; García Pérez, Pascual; Tecnología de Alimentos, Nutrición y Bromatología; Facultad de Veterinaria
    In this work, suspension-cultured cells of Linum usitatissimum L. were used to evaluate the effect of two types of cyclodextrins, β-glucan and (Z)-3-hexenol separately or in combination on phytosterol and tocopherol production. Suspension-cultured cells of L. usitatissimum were able to produce high levels of phytosterols in the presence of 50 mM methylated-β-cyclodextrins (1325.96 ± 107.06 μg g dry weight−1) separately or in combination with β-glucan (1278.57 ± 190.10 μg g dry weight−1) or (Z)-3-hexenol (1507.88 ± 173.02 μg g dry weight−1), being cyclodextrins able to increase both the secretion and accumulation of phytosterols in the spent medium, whereas β-glucan and (Z)-3-hexenol themselves only increased its intracellular accumulation. Moreover, the phytosterol values found in the presence of hydroxypropylated-β-cyclodextrins were lower than those found in the presence of methylated-β-cyclodextrins in all cases studied. However, the results showed that the presence of methylated-β-cyclodextrins did not increase the tocopherols production and only an increase in tocopherol levels was observed when cells were elicited with 50 mM hydroxypropylated-β-cyclodextrins in combination with β-glucan (174 μg g dry weight−1) or (Z)-3-hexenol (257 μg g dry weight−1). Since the levels of tocopherol produced in the combined treatment were higher than the sum of the individual treatments, a synergistic effect between both elicitors was assumed. To sum up, flax cell cultures elicited with cyclodextrins alone or in combination with β-glucan or (Z)-3-hexenol were able produce phytosterols and tocopherols, and therefore, these elicited suspension-cultured cells of L. usitatissimum can provide an alternative system, which is at the same time more sustainable, economical and ecological for their production.