Studies of shoot organogenesis in Chlorophytm borivilianum Sant. et Fernand

Abstract

Medicinal plants especially herbs are utilized by locals for the treatment of various diseases. The advances in the field of phytochemistry and pharmacology led to discovery of modern drugs from plants. Thus, the interest for Chlorophytum borivilianum Sant. et Fernand (Safed musli) is rising rapidly due to its medicinal properties. As a consequence, its demand is limited by traditional methods of propagation. Thus, tissue culture seems to be an alternative which results in the conservation of its natural stock. The present work was focused to induce shoot organogenesis form the leaf explants of C. borivilianum. Maximum shoot regeneration in C. borivilianum was achieved on MS medium fortified with 5.0 µM BAP. Moreover, sucrose as carbohydrate source in MS medium played an important role on growth of shoot clumps in C. borivilianum. The rooting response of C. borivilianum varied significantly with increasing concentrations of IBA. IBA enriched MS medium resulted in 100% root induction. Moreover, the effect of 2, 4-D in combination with BAP & TDZ was studied for the induction of shoot organogenesis on leaf segments excised from microshoots of C. borivilianum. Direct shoot organogenesis was achieved on MS medium supplemented with 5.0 µM BAP and 2.5 µM 2, 4-D. Another important finding was the induction of shoots from the leaf bases on MS medium containing only IBA. Morphology of regenerated plants was found to be identical with their mother plants. Regenerated plantlets from leaf bases were checked for any somaclonal variations using PCR based molecular marker such as RAPD and ISSR. The regenerated shoots were found true to type. Thus, present study resulted in the optimization of regeneration protocol which possesses the great potential for carrying out trait specific modifications in C. borivilianum.