Formation of Artemisinin in Artemisia annua During One Vegetation Period^*,1

Abstract

In order to investigate the possibility of isolating greater amounts of the antimalarial compound artemisinin (quinghaosu), plants of Artemisia annua were cultivated and analysed at different stages of development. We found the highest content just before flowering. It was also possible to correlate development of the plants with the maximum content of artemisinin. Artemisia annua plants cultivated from various other sources were also examine for artemisinin content. According to our results, none of these plants contained sufficient amounts of artemisinin to justify an isolation on a technical scale. Furthermore other Artemisia species were tested. We found artemisinin in only one other species. To possibly increase the amount of artemisinin during the growth period of the plant, we tested two hormone-type growth regulators on A. annua strain 811. The results showed that one of them, chlormequat, was able to increase the artemisinin content by 30% over untreated plants. We also found some slight effects of the growth regulators on morphological criteria of glandular trichomes.