biologia plantarum

Biologia plantarum 52:533-537, 2008 | DOI: 10.1007/s10535-008-0104-6

Hairy root culture of Plumbago indica as a potential source for plumbagin

M. Gangopadhyay¹, D. Sircar², A. Mitra², S. Bhattacharya^1,*

¹ Medicinal Plant Laboratory, Department of Botany, Bose Institute, Kolkata, India

² Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India

Hairy roots of Plumbago indica were established at high frequency (90 %) by infecting leaf explants with Agrobacterium rhizogenes strain ATCC 15834. The axenic root cultures were established under darkness in hormone-free liquid Murashige and Skoog medium containing 3 % sucrose. The highest plumbagin content was found to accumulate in roots at their exponential phase of growth. A low pH (4.6) and a low concentration of sucrose (1 %) were beneficial for root growth in darkness, while pH 5.6 and 3 % sucrose under continuous irradiance enhanced plumbagin accumulation in roots up to 7.8 mg g^-1(d.m.). Direct shoot regeneration from hairy root culture was also achieved under continuous irradiance, thus indicated an easy way of obtaining transformed P. indica plants.

Keywords: Agrobacterium rhizogenes; transformation; organogenesis

Subjects: Agrobacterium rhizogenes; in vitro culture, rooting; nutrient medium, Murashige and Skoog (MS); Plumbago indica

Received: September 1, 2006; Accepted: March 12, 2007; Published: September 1, 2008  Show citation