Modified AHP-based decision-making model toward accurate selection of eligible maintenance media for production of taxanes in Taxus baccata callus culture

Attempts were made here to apply a modified analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach based on refinement assay of dominated alternatives in monitoring the most reliable callus maintenance media (supplemented with L-glutamine and Casamino acid) of Taxus baccata callus cultures in terms of five criteria. Generally, regarding stem-derived calli, 6 out of 18 maintenance media were nominated as non-dominated alternatives, and following AHP ranking test Casamino acid-based media (i.e., A12, A15 and A19) were overall nominated as the premiere. Taking leaf-derived calli into account, only L-glutaminebased media in an ascending order of A8, A4, A6, A5, A9 and A3 were introduced as non-dominated alternatives. Such results connote that L-glutamine-based feeding appears to generate more significant results either for continuous calli growth or taxanes production. In contrast, regarding the second explant, stem, both amino acid supplies had fairly equal worth. Our findings, overall, demonstrate promising applications of the proposed AHP method regarding accurate selection of the best callus maintenance cultures of T. baccata for production of different taxanes including paclitaxel, Baccatin III and 10-deacetylbaccatin III. Similarly, this statistical approach could be also applicable for other crops, for instance, for accurate selection of the best callus cultures/media and consequently production improvement of a given plant secondary metabolite/product.