Abstract
Phyllanthus niruri (P. niruri) or Dukung Anak is a herbal plant in the Phyllanthaceae family that has been used traditionally to treat various ailments such as diabetes, jaundice, flu and cough. P. niruri contains numerous medicinal benefits such as anti-tumor and anti-carcinogenic properties and a remedy for hepatitis B viral infection. Due to its beneficial properties, P. niruri is overharvested and wild plants become scarce. This study was conducted to develop an appropriate in vitro culture protocol for the mass production of P. niruri. An aseptic culture of P. niruri was established followed by multiplication of explants using different types of basal medium and its strength and plant growth regulators manipulation. This study also established the induction of in vitro rooting utilizing various types and concentrations of auxin. Treatment of Clorox® with 30% concentration showed the lowest percentage (%) of contamination, 4.44% in P. niruri culture. Nodal segments of P. niruri were successfully induced in full-strength of Murashige and Skoog (MS) basal media with 2.33 number of shoots, 3.11 cm length of shoot and 27.91 number of leaves. In addition, explants in full-strength MS media without any additional cytokinin were recorded as the optimum results for all parameters including the number of shoots (5.0 shoots), the length of shoots (3.68 cm) and the number of leaves (27.33 leaves). Treatment of 2.5 µM indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) showed the highest number of roots (17.92 roots) and root length (1.29 cm). Rooted explants were transferred for acclimatization, and the plantlet showed over 80% of survival rate. In conclusion, plantlets of P. niruri were successfully induced and multiplied via in vitro culture, which could be a step closer to its commercialization.
Highlights
Over the past several years, medicinal plants have gained greater attention and recognition in Malaysia, as demand for alternative medicine and natural health products increases in 2019 [1,2]
Nodal segments of P. niruri were cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium without any plant growth regulators following the surface sterilization procedure
The control treatment produced the highest number of leaves (27.33 leaves), whereas 5.0 μM 2-isopentenyl adenine (2iP) treatment showed the lowest number of leaves
Summary
Over the past several years, medicinal plants have gained greater attention and recognition in Malaysia, as demand for alternative medicine and natural health products increases in 2019 [1,2]. The Malaysia Economic Transformation Program, through the National Key Economic Areas for the agriculture sector, has identified numerous high potential herbs that can be commercially utilized as a new economic growth source in the herbal industry. One of these herbs is Phyllanthus niruri (P. niruri), identified locally as Dukung Anak [4]. A novel compound named niruriside was isolated from methanol extract of P. niruri that can inhibit the binding of human immunodeficiency virus Rev protein (HIV REV) [10]. Many products were made from this medicinal plant have been successfully commercialized
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