Abstract
Osbeckiaoctandra (HeenBovitiya), which is one of the most valuable ayurvedic medicinal and ornamental plants in Sri Lanka, is now threatened due to its overexploitation from their natural habitat. In order to produce high quality, disease-free and genetically identical plant materials in large scale, we developed a highly efficient in vitro clonal propagation system using leaf explants. The effects of three different concentrations of plant growth regulators (6-benzylaminopurine (BAP), 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), kinetin and incubation conditions on plant regeneration were investigated. Plant growth parameters were analyzed in 15 biological replicates using one-way ANOVA. Present study revealed that the highest number of shoots per leaf explant with 92.4% shoot induction rate was achieved when young mature leaf explants were cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 3 mg/L BAP and 0.5 mg/L NAA and incubated under dark conditions. When microshoots were separated and subcultured onto hormone-free MS medium containing high sugar content (4%), rapid shoot multiplication and a vigorous root development was detected under light conditions. The in vitro grown plantlets were successfully acclimatized and 89% of the regenerated plantlets survived. Our novel clonal propagation system will open new avenues for mass propagation of O. octandra plants for the pharmaceutical industry and improving their medicinal and ornamental characteristics through biotechnological tools.
Highlights
IntroductionSri Lanka has an extensive diversity of medicinal plants. Over 1400 natural herbs are currently being used in Sri Lankan indigenous systems of medicine such as Ayurvedha and Deshiya Chikitsa to cure various ailments (Napagoda et al, 2018; Napagoda et al, 2019)
As a tropical country, Sri Lanka has an extensive diversity of medicinal plants
In our study, we cultured leaf explants on solid MS media supplemented with various combinations of cytokinin (BAP and Kinetin) and auxin (NAA) and evaluated their shoot regeneration ability under light and dark conditions
Summary
Sri Lanka has an extensive diversity of medicinal plants. Over 1400 natural herbs are currently being used in Sri Lankan indigenous systems of medicine such as Ayurvedha and Deshiya Chikitsa to cure various ailments (Napagoda et al, 2018; Napagoda et al, 2019). Biotechnological approaches such as plant tissue culture provide tremendous potential and those techniques are becoming more popular for mass scale production of herbal plants as they provide several advantages over conventional methods (Nagahatenna & Peiris, 2007; Nagahatenna & Peiris, 2008a; Nagahatenna & Peiris, 2008b). One of the major drawbacks which exist for this potential is the lack of efficient tissue culture techniques for native medicinal plant species This is primarily attributed to the recalcitrant nature of the medicinal plants due to presence of polyphenolic compounds(Sarasan et al, 2006).the primary objective of this study was to develop a highly efficient in vitro protocol for Osbeckiaoctandra, one of the extensively used medicinal plants(Perera et al, 2013; Fernando et al, 1990) which contains unique ornamental characteristics
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