Agricultural and Biological Research

A study on the effect of different elicitors on capsaicin accumulation in cell suspension cultures of Capsicum assamicum (Bhut Jolokia)

S Nisha*, Bora A, Gogoi HK, Handique PJ and Dwivedi SK

Elicitation of cell suspension cultures of Capsicum assamicum (Bhut Jolokia) for enhancement of capsaicin content was tried using different elicitors such as cellulase, vanillin, methyl jasmonate, salicylic acid and sinapic acid in different concentrations for 24, 48 and 72 hours. Cell suspension culture was established in B5 media supplemented with 3.5 mM 2,4-D (2,4-diphenoxyacetic acid) and 1.1 mM Kin and elicitors were introduced at the end of exponential phase. All the elicitors, except methyl jasmonate, led to significant increase in production of capsaicin. Sinapic acid, when added in 22 μM concentration and incubated for 24 hours, led to highest capsaicin accumulation of 0.5% (5068 μg/g) which was highest among all the treatments.