Enhanced recovery of solavetivone from Agrobacterium transformed root cultures of Hyoscyamus muticus using integrated product extraction

The integrated recovery of solavetivone from fungus elicited “hairy root” cultures of Hyoscyamus muticus is examined using volatile organic solvents and solid‐phase adsorbents in an external loop extraction configuration. Hexane and pentane are shown to be toxic when added directly to the culture; however, growth of roots is not inhibited when cultures are exposed to media saturated with these hydrocarbons. Solid‐phase neutral adsorbents, XAD‐7 and XAD‐16, display higher capacity and better solavetivone partitioning capability than the hydrocarbons; however, their selectivity for the sesquiterpene solavetivone is poor in comparison with hexane. In both cases, the integration of product recovery through extraction resulted in a doubling of product formation by alleviating feedback repression. Implications of these results to the recovery of secondary metabolites from plant root cultures are discussed. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.