Abstract

An efficient plant regeneration protocol through axillary shoot proliferation of nodal explants of a valuable medicinal plant, Paederia foetida, has been developed. Highest shoot multiplication was found on Murashige and Skoog’s (MS) medium supplemented with 3.0 mg/l N6 -benzylaminopurine. Upscaling of shoots was accomplished from axenic nodal explants derived from primary in vitro regenerated shoots on fresh medium of the same composition. Thus, we could obtain 71–76 shoots, in vitro, starting from a single node within 11–12 weeks. These shoots were successfully rooted on ½ MS medium and acclimatized in soil. The biochemical fidelity was assessed by evaluating the antioxidant activities of leaves of both field grown mother plant and micropropagated plants. The antioxidant activities, as carried out by 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl and metal chelating assay, of leaves collected from micropropagated plants were at par with activity of leaves collected from mother plant. Most importantly, both sources have significant antioxidant activities compared to the standard, butylated hydroxytoluene. Further, genetic fidelity of the micropropagated plants with that of the mother plant was assessed by inter simple sequence repeats markers, and their true-to-type nature was confirmed on the basis of monomorphic banding profile. This protocol has potential to create large number of clonal plants with similar antioxidant activities as the natural plants and thus could be useful for drug research and development.

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