Abstract
Artemisinin is effective against both chloroquine-resistant and -sensitive strains of
Plasmodium
species. However, the low yield of artemisinin from cultivated and wild plants is a serious limitation to the commercialization of this drug. Optimization of artemisinin yield either in vivo or in vitro is therefore highly desirable. To this end, we have overexpressed the 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-coenzyme A reductase (HMGR) gene (
hmgr
) from
Catharanthus
roseus
L. in
Artemisia annua
L. and analyzed its influence on artemisinin content. PCR and Southern blot analyses revealed that the transgenic plants showed stable integration of the foreign
hmgr
gene. The reverse transcriptase-PCR results suggested that the
hmgr
was expressed at the transcriptional level in transgenic lines of
Artemisia annua
L., while the high-performance liquid chromatography analysis showed that artemisinin content was significantly increased in a number of the transgenic lines. Artemisinin content in one of the
A. annua
transgenic lines was 38.9% higher than that in non-transgenic plants, and HMGR enzyme activity in transgenic
A. annua
L
.
was also higher than that in the non-transgenic lines.