Study on UV-B irradiation impact on atropine content and antioxidant enzymes activity in Atropa (Atropa belladonna L.) plant hairy roots

Atropa Belladonna L. is the most important medicinal plant of Solanaceae family, due to important commercial sources of atropine and scopolamine as tropane alkaloids. Applications of hairy root cultures are advised because of their special properties such as fast growth, short doubling time, ease of maintenance, and ability to synthesize and continuous production of a range of chemical compounds. Effects of ozone depletion and UV irradiation have been studied by most of the investigators. In the present study, the effect of different levels of UV-B irradiation was studied on atropine production and activity of some antioxidant enzymes. UV-B irradiation during 3 days was treated for 4, 8 and 12 min that was equal to 13, 26 and 39 Kj/m2 respectively. Results showed that increase of UV-B lending to decrease hairy roots dry weight. This irradiation increased atropine content in comparison of control treat and the highest was recorded in 26 Kj/m2. The activity of antioxidant enzymes including catalase, guaiacol peroxidase, and ascorbate peroxidase was also elevated in treated hairy roots rather than of the control at 0.01% of probability. Based on obtained results in this work UV-B irradiation can be considered as one of the useful methods for Atropine and antioxidant enzymes in A. belladonna hairy roots.