The purpose of the present study was to characterize the generation of nitric oxide (NO) in Artemisia annua roots induced by an oligosaccharide elicitor (OE) from Fusarium oxysporum mycelium and the potentiation role of NO in the elicitation of artemisinin accumulation. The OE (0.3 mg total sugar/mL) induced a rapid production of NO in cultures, which exhibited a biphasic time course, reaching the first plateau within 1.5 h and the second within 8 h of OE treatment. Artemisinin content in 20-day-old hairy roots was increased from 0.7 mg/g dry wt to 1.3 mg/g dry wt by using the OE treatment for 4 d. In the absence of OE, the NO donor sodium nitroprusside (SNP) at 10, 50 microM and 100 microM enhanced the growth of hairy roots, but had no effect on artemisinin synthesis. The combination of SNP with OE increased artemisinin content from 1.2 mg/g dry wt to 2.2 mg/g dry wt, whereas the maximum production of artemisinin in cultures was 28.5 mg/L, a twofold increase over the OE treatment alone. The effects of SNP on the OE-induced artemisinin were suppressed strongly by the NO scavenger 2-(4-carboxyphenyl)-4,4,5,5-tetramethylimidazoline-1-oxyl-3-oxide (cPTIO). The results suggest that NO can strongly potentiate elicitor-induced artemisinin synthesis in A. annua hairy roots.