Abstract: We investigated the effects of different concentrations of sucrose, maltose and glucose on cell growth, rosemary acid accumulation in rosemary suspension cells. And we also studied the different concentration of sucrose on antioxidant enzyme activity in rosemary suspension cells. The optimum sugar treatment for cell biomass accumulation was 30 g·L^-1 sucrose, 70 g·L^-1 maltose and 40 g·L^-1 glucose in rosemary suspension cells. Moreover, the growth rates of suspension culture cells were 74.08% and 72.33% under processing of 30 g·L^-1 sucrose and 70 g·L^-1 maltose, respectively，but was nearly three times more than that of 40 g·L^-1 glucose. The content of rosemary acid in 30 g·L^-1 sucrose suspension culture cells was 228 times more than that in 70 g·L^-1 maltose, but slightly lower than that in 40 g·L^-1 glucose. Under different sucrose treatment, rosemary acid content showed an increase trend with the increase of sucrose content, which meant that a high concentration of sucrose was conducive to rosemary acid accumulation. H₂O₂ and MDA content obviously increased under the treatment of higher sucrose concentration, while antioxidant enzymes such as catalase(CAT), guaiacol peroxidase(G-POD) and SOD also increased. The osmotic stress under high concentration of sucrose was bad for the growth of rosemary suspension culture cells, but was conducive to the accumulation of secondary metabolites. Considering the growth rate and rosemary acid content, the medium supplemented with 30 g·L^-1 sucrose was most suitable for rosemary suspension cultured cells.

Key words: sucrose, suspension cells, growth, secondary metabolite, antioxidant enzyme