Taxol, a diterpene obtained fron taxus spp. Exhibits significant anticancer activity. Tissue culture of taxul represents a potential altrnatilve source of taxol and related taxane. Analysed was the effect of the type and concentration of sugars on callus growth rate and taxol production in callus of Taxus baccata L. callus was induced from needles and young stems of yew using 45 combinations of 2,4-D or NAA combined with kinetin. The results indicated that callus growth rate in sucrose treatment media was higher than glucose; and the rate in fructose treatment media was much lower than those in both sucrose and glucose .The calli derived from stems display faster growth rate and higher callus production than needles callus. Taxol concentration in calli derived from stems(from 0.021 to 0.056% of dry wt.)was higher than that in needles callus (from 0.018 to 0.034% of dry wt.). For taxol production , sucrose did better than that other two type of sugar tested. There was no significant correlation observed between taxol production and callus growth or concentration of sugar. As a whole , these findings show that calli derived from stems not only have a high rate of callus growth brt also produce higher levels of taxol as compared with needles callus and thus are very suitable for tissue culture.
Sucrose is shown to be the best carbon source , because it increases both callus growth rate and taxol production as observed in this study
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