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cornilius maximus

potential honors project

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Hi All,

This is not necessarily an ethno question, I just dont know where else to put it, BUT,

Can anyone please suggest to me a plant worth investigating for an honors project which is capable of developing in suspension culture in order to extract secondary metabolites that may be worthy of publication? ( of course you will be mentioned in the acknowledgments section of the paper).

I would prefer if the compound was contained in the roots, as this is the infrastructure most readily available to me.

I have a few ideas in mind already, but I thought I may throw it out to the community to see if there was anything someone may have had in mind that they would like to see formally studied. At least to the best of my capabilities.

peace

cornilius maximus

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Can anyone please suggest to me a plant worth investigating for an honors project which is capable of developing in suspension culture in order to extract secondary metabolites that may be worthy of publication? ( of course you will be mentioned in the acknowledgments section of the paper).

I would prefer if the compound was contained in the roots, as this is the infrastructure most readily available to me.

I have a few ideas in mind already, but I thought I may throw it out to the community to see if there was anything someone may have had in mind that they would like to see formally studied. At least to the best of my capabilities.

Ooh fun!

Wasabi, Lotus or Corydalis. They've been done before I think so they'd be relatively simple protocol wise and you could just tweak the protocol to try for enhanced yield- much easier than starting from scratch

Iboga if you're somewhere that can handle any legal restrictions ( if there are any- not sure ). It's been done in suspension before to not a lot of yield but you could also experiment with pre-feeding or elicitors or different culture regimes like continual harvest from immobilised cells. As a student you don't need to prove more than a solid experimental foundation and good documentation, you're not after commercial yields

Lotus.

Why are roots the preferred starting material for your culture? Why not embryonic callus? Roots are a bitch to sterilise unless you have them established aseptically already, and if you have aseptic seedlings you may as well start from all parts

Why suspension culture? Why not hairy root culture? It's more reliable over multiple generations as a producer I think, and cell suspension lines need good solid storage and record keeping or they degenerate quickly

I've a million ideas for this. Let us know what you pick and good luck

Edited by Darklight

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Licorice first comes to mind, havent had a coffee yet.....

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Two things quickly

I'm not sure if you are able to do this- but if I were you I'd start with three species- two closely related and one a fair distance off. It will only add a little time overall

If your planned protocols really shit themselves with one species and you can't get any results to speak of, you'll either be tweaking them endlessly in frustration halfway through your project, or you'll start again with a new species halfway through etc

Subject all species to the same protocol and pick the one which responds best.

And for extra schmoozing points you could pick a species that your supervisor did their favourite postgrad work on. Personally I wouldn't cos there are too many interesting species out there and chances are your supervisor did one of the boring ones, but it can be helpful a) to establish rapport (or sucking up, you decide and B) your supervisor will probably have an established network of people well versed in working with that species- you can't underestimate the usefulness of direct networking, especially when results are thin on the ground

Any why suspension culture, really, unless your target sp. has a documented history of yields and established protocols. Semi-organised tissue has a much greater chance of yielding *something*

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Is this a plant science question, or is it a chemistry question?

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some plants contain compounds that kill penicillin - resistant bacteria that have the the potential to become real nasty superbugs : " flesh eating " streps ,etc .If I were in a position where able to do so , these are the plants I would like to study ....

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Hi All,

I was quite intoxicated when I wrote my first post and in doing so forgot all about it. :blush:

Darklight, thanks for your input.

Ooh fun!

Wasabi, Lotus or Corydalis. They've been done before I think so they'd be relatively simple protocol wise and you could just tweak the protocol to try for enhanced yield- much easier than starting from scratch

Iboga if you're somewhere that can handle any legal restrictions ( if there are any- not sure ). It's been done in suspension before to not a lot of yield but you could also experiment with pre-feeding or elicitors or different culture regimes like continual harvest from immobilised cells. As a student you don't need to prove more than a solid experimental foundation and good documentation, you're not after commercial yields

Lotus.

Why are roots the preferred starting material for your culture? Why not embryonic callus? Roots are a bitch to sterilise unless you have them established aseptically already, and if you have aseptic seedlings you may as well start from all parts

Why suspension culture? Why not hairy root culture? It's more reliable over multiple generations as a producer I think, and cell suspension lines need good solid storage and record keeping or they degenerate quickly

I've a million ideas for this. Let us know what you pick and good luck

I have only just began discussing this with my potential supervisor this week. As it would be a project for next year, he suggested that I get hold of a plant of interest and develop a callus culture as you suggested and then isolate and develop a sterile hairy root culture.

The equipment that I have available was designed by a Professor in Korea who now mass produces ginseng roots. Quite an amasing feet considering they take 23-26years to reach maturity in the ground, where he has a couple of month turn over, hence why all these new energy drinks can contain it for so cheap. This is also why I am focusing on a root culture system, as the equipment is purposely designed for that. Although there is a degree of flexability there if a shoot culture presents itself.

The first plant that my supervisor suggested off the top of his head was Derris. Despite that it is not the soundest ecologically, it was that he new the roots contained the compound rotenone and that I would get a result out of the experiment. Not to sure if I am that keen on this one though.

Also as you sugessted Darklight, my supervisor has recommended that I find a plant that has been successfully cultured and try and tweek the methods, even to compare any potential yields through comparison of hairy root, suspension, etc.

Obtuse, I was not sure where to place this thread, but you may be right that it should go in the chemistry section, but now I am not sure how to move it.

Heretic, I like your suggestion too. I happen to be doing a small research project next semester, testing the anti-microbial properties of some various Australian natives, of which I will post up my results if I find anything of interest.

Once again, thanks for your interest people, and please keep the suggestions coming. I would like to get a culture going this year so that I will have a sterile product to begin with next year

peace

cornilius maximus

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I have only just began discussing this with my potential supervisor this week. As it would be a project for next year, he suggested that I get hold of a plant of interest and develop a callus culture as you suggested and then isolate and develop a sterile hairy root culture.

OK. One hint, which you may already know. Anyone can make a callus culture. What you need to have is a callus culture capable of regenerating.

Callus culture is just disorganised cells. However there are many types of callus culture, and many morphological forms. If you disorganise callus culture past the point where it won't regenerate, it probably also won't be responsive to any efforts to work with it

You can have friable callus, soupy callus, firm, embryogenic callus etc. These will all respond differently to your conditions, even when they're from the same parent stock. Callus ain't callus

So go the whole hog when you start. Come up with a protocol which gives you a callus culture that *does* regenerate, and test it by regenerating it back at least to axillary formation, but pref to whole plant in-vitro or ex-

Embryonic callus is more *plastic* by comparison to older tissue. So start with young material. Embryos. Scutella. Radicle. Dicot. Ax node. Internode. Germinate some seedlings in-vitro and run the various parts through a gradient of callus inducing media, if you don't have a protocol- or even if you do- you should confirm it works for your stock's gene pool. Then regen. And only then can you be confident it will play with you

Oh, not sure if you know this- if you go the hairy root option, make sure you use a few different Agro strains. One which does agropine, one for mannopine etc. You can get different chemical results from each, as well as from each parent plant part

The equipment that I have available was designed by a Professor in Korea who now mass produces ginseng roots. Quite an amasing feet considering they take 23-26years to reach maturity in the ground, where he has a couple of month turn over, hence why all these new energy drinks can contain it for so cheap. This is also why I am focusing on a root culture system, as the equipment is purposely designed for that. Although there is a degree of flexability there if a shoot culture presents itself.

Porn! you and I should meet :) I want to see the porn! Has envy!

Obtuse, I was not sure where to place this thread, but you may be right that it should go in the chemistry section, but now I am not sure how to move it.

Oh, I thought it was an obvious ethnobotany contender, you were asking about species, but if you wanted to move it so it's not available unless someone logs in then I spose it fits in pharma too

Cornellius I'm glad you asked this. These are the cool questions :) Happy to help

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