Establishment of a Cell Suspension Culture of : Phytochemical Screening of Extracts and Evaluation of Antifungal Activity.

() is a medicinal plant used in Mexico. Biotechnological studies of its use are lacking. The objective of this work was to establish a cell suspension culture (CSC) of , determine the phytochemical constituents by spectrophotometric and gas chromatography‒mass spectrometry (GC‒MS) methods, evaluate its antifungal activity, and compare them with the intact plant. Friable callus and CSC were established with 2 mg/L 1-naphthaleneacetic acid plus 0.1 mg/L kinetin. The highest total phenolics of CSC was 15.6 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/g dry weight and the total flavonoids content ranged from 56.2 to 104.1 µg quercetin equivalents (QE)/g dry weight. The GC‒MS analysis showed that the dichloromethane extracts of CSC, sapwood, and heartwood have a high amount of hexadecanoic acid (22.3-35.3%) and steroids (13.5-14.7%). Heartwood and sapwood defatted hexane extracts have the highest amount of stigmasterol (~23.4%) and -sitosterol (~43%), and leaf extracts presented -amyrin (16.3%). Methanolic leaf extracts showed mostly sugars and some polyols, mainly D-pinitol (74.3%). Compared with the intact plant, dichloromethane and fatty hexane extracts of CSC exhibited percentages of inhibition higher for : 71.5% and 62.0%, respectively. The maximum inhibition for was with fatty hexane extracts of the sapwood (51.4%). Our study suggests that CSC extracts could be used as a possible complementary alternative to synthetic fungicides.