Studies on Pellitorine Production and Antioxidant Activity of Explant Specific Calli of Anacyclus pyrethrum

Abstract

Anacyclus pyrethrum is a perennial and procumbent herb of immense medicinal value, largely due to the presence of an array of therapeutically active alkaloids such as Pellitorine. In this study, cotyledon, hypocotyl and root explants of A. pyrethrum were tested for their callogenic response and subsequent pellitorine accumulation on MS medium supplemented with 2, 4-D. At elevated concentrations of 2,4-D cotyledonary explants showed higher callogenic response than root and hypocotyl but at lower concentrations of 2,4-D, the results were observed the opposite. The calli of all the treatments were harvested after 30, 45, 60 and 75 days of inoculation. In this study, it was observed that a linear increase in the fresh and dry weight of the callus was recorded towards the end of the treatment. The calli of all the three explants were tested for pellitorine content after 30d, 45d, 60d, and 75d of the culture. The results showed that there was a significant increase in the accumulation of pellitorine from 30d to 75d of harvesting. Interestingly, calli of cotyledons harvested at 75d of inoculation accumulated maximum pellitorine content of 94.50 μg/g dry weight indicating that the old callus is harvested for maximum economic benefit and large scale production of pellitorine. Antioxidant activity of calli raised from different explants and harvested after different time intervals were examined using DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) method. Thus, this study reports an efficient and reproducible protocol for successful callus induction from various explants of A. pyrethrum for large scale production of pellitorine and evaluation of antioxidant activities.