Determination of relationship between CYP450 gene expression and diosgenin production in fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) tissue

Fenugreek has been used at medicine, nourishment, cosmetic because of its bioactive and aromatic compounds. Fenugreek seeds have plenty of molecules which are therapeutics. The most important one is diosgenin. Diosgenin is essential precursor for many steroidal drugs in pharmaceutical industry. Moreover, it has exhibited bioactive properties such as hyperlipidemia, hipoglisemia, anti-oxidant, anti-enflamatuar, anti-cancer and proliferative activity. Recent studies have been hypothesized that diosgenin formation from either lanosterol or cycloartenol. Plants produce some metabolites as carbohydrates, proteins, lipids to sustain their life. Unlike these metabolites, they produce secondary metabolites as a guard against pathogens and to improve fertility. The secondary metabolites used as cosmetic, dietary, textile and primarily in medical and pharmaceutical areas. Hereby high volume production of secondary metabolites become important. Therefore nowadays, different biotechnological strategies such as gene transfer studies and elicitation studies are being used for high volume production of secondary metabolites. In this thesis, callus culture obtained via in vitro grown plant explants. Cell suspension cultures were established from these calli and yeast extract was applied at the concentration of 0,01 g/mL for 12 hours and 24 hours to elicitate 13th day old cultures. After elicitation, the amount of diosgenin was measured and the expression of CYP86A2, β-glucosidase and cycloartenol synthesa (CAS) genes which were thought to be has a role on the production pathway of diosgenin were examined. As a result, yeast extract increased the diosgenin production at 12th and 24th hours. In this study, it was demonstrated that yeast extract can be used as an elicitor to increase the production of diosgenin in fenugreek cell suspension cultures.