Abstract

Bioreactor plays a vital role in the commercial production of secondary metabolites and pharmaceuticals from plant cells. Many physical factors, like the mixing intensity, shear stress and operation conditions were optimized as a first step in scaling up process. Qualitative and quantitative determination of cucurbitacins E and I in the extract were carried out using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). After two weeks of equipping the reactor with marine impeller, both the growth rate and the concentration of cucurbitacins were increased. However, the increase in the aeration rate from 0.3 to 0.6 vvm induced the production of cucurbitacin E, it reduced the cucurbitacin I production. The highest recorded level of cucurbitacins was 0.3 and 0.1 g/L for cucurbitacin E and cucurbitacin I, respectively. Crude cucurbitacins extract showed potent antitumor activity in a range of 15.6 to 23.5 μg/ml against various carcinoma cell lines. In the current study, the optimizing condition for the production of cucubitacins E and I in Ecballium Elaterium and their biological activities as an antitumor and antimicrobial agent were evaluated.

Key words: Ecballium Elaterium, cucubitacins E, cucubitacins I, bioreactor, antitumor.