Artemisinin is a secondary metabolite well-known for its use in the treatment of malaria. It also displays other antimicrobial activities which further increase its interest. At present, Artemisia annua is the sole commercial source of the substance, and its production is limited, leading to a global deficit in supply. Furthermore, the cultivation of A. annua is being threatened by climate change.Specifically, drought stress is a major concern for plant development and productivity, but, on the other hand, moderate stress levels can elicit the production of secondary metabolites, with a putative synergistic interaction with elicitors such as chitosan oligosaccharides (COS).
With this aim, the effects on artemisinin production under drought stress and treatment with COS, as well as physiological changes in A. annua plants are presented in this study.Plants were separated into two groups, well-watered (WW) and drought-stressed (DS) plants, and in each group, four concentrations of COS were applied (0, 50,100 and 200 mg•L-1). Afterwards, water stress was imposed by withholding irrigation for 9 days. The result showed that during drought stress, higher doses cos improved the water status since leaf water potential (YL) improved by 50.64% and relative water content (RWC) by 33.84% compared to DS plants without COS treatment. Moreover, the combination of COS and drought stresscaused damage to the plant’s antioxidant enzyme defence, particularly APX and GR, and reduced the amount of phenols and flavonoids. This resulted in increased ROS production and enhanced artemisinin content by 34.40% in DS plants treated with 200 mg•L-1 COS, compared to control plants.
Relative growth rate (A) calculated with digital biomass in well-watered plants (WW) and drought-stressed plants (DS) treated with 0, 50, 100 and 200 mg·L-1 of COS. Different letters indicate significant differences according to the Tukey HSD test after two-way ANOVA, p< 0.05. Represented values are the mean ± SE. RGB pictures of top camara (B) and side camara (C) used to calculate the digital biomass in well-watered plants (WW) and drought-stressed plants (DS) treated with 0, 50, 100 and 200 mg·L-1 of COS 2 and 9 days after the start of the experiment. Representative pictures of each experimental group were selected to (B) and (C).
Reference:The use of chitosan oligosaccharide to improve artemisinin yield in well-watered and drought-stressed plants
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