The effect of UV-C light irradiation on stilbenoid biosynthetic pathway in grape (Vitis vinifera L. cv. Shahani) cell suspension culture

Grape stilbenes are well-known family of plant polyphenolics that have been confirmed to have many biological activities in relation to health benefits. In this study, we investigated the effect of UV-C elicitor at three different irradiation periods (10, 20 and 30 min) in combination or not with high-level light irradiation (10000 LUX) on a cell line obtained from the pulp of Vitis vinifera cv. Shahani as Completely Randomized Factorial Design, and compared the results with those of untreated control cultures. Results showed that growing the cells in dark condition can stimulate the metabolic pathway related to bio-production of the stilbenoids more than that of the cells growing under light condition. Among the time courses of UV-C elicitor irradiation, according to our results, irradiation of UV-C for 10 min was optimum for efficient production and higher accumulation of phenolics (112.73 mg GA/g DCW) and flavonoids (150.47 mg catechin/g DCW) as well as stilbenoids including the summation of resveratrol and its glycosylated form piceid (7.54 µg/ml). Furthermore, it was shown that there is a significant negative correlation between production of these metabolites and the cell growth. These data provide valuable information for the future scale up of cell cultures for the production of these very high value compounds in bioreactor systems.