A protocol of high frequency shoot organogenesis and plant establishment from stem derived callus has been developed for Tylophora indica (Burm. f.) Merrill. -an endangered medicinal plant. Callus was developed on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 10 µM 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2,4,5-T). Multiple shoot induction was achieved from the surface of the callus after transferring onto shoot induction medium. The highest rate (80 %) of shoot multiplication was achieved on MS medium containing 5.0 µM kinetin. The developed shoots rooted best on halfstrength MS medium supplemented with 0.5 µM indole-3-butyric acid (IBA). The in vitro raised plantlets with well developed shoot and roots were acclimatized successfully and grown in greenhouse.Additional key words: callus culture, growth regulators, medicinal plant, shoot multiplication, 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxy acetic acid.
⎯⎯⎯⎯Tylophora indica (Asclepiadaceae) is a perennial climbing plant native to the plains, forest and hills of southern and eastern India. The pharmacological importance of this plant is mainly due to the presence of alkaloid tylophorine and tylophorenine. Besides, root contains a potential anti-tumor alkaloid tylophorinidine (Mulchandani et al. 1971).The over-exploitation of Tylophora indica from the nature and inadequate efforts for its cultivation resulted in marked decline in the population of this species. Therefore, it is necessary to develop methods for in vitro propagation and conservation of this plant. Only micropropagation through axillary bud sprouting (Sharma and Chandel 1992) has been reported on this plant. It has been shown that shoot organogenesis via an intermediate callus phase can be used as an effective method for multiplication of other medicinal plants (Sarasan et al. 1994, Ahroni et al. 1997, Castillo and Jordan 1997, Sharma and Wakhlu 2001, Sin and Teng 2002. The present communication is the first report on an efficient in vitro propagation and multiplication of Tylophora indica via stem callus culture.The young shoots of Tylophora indica collected from plants grown at the Botanical Garden, Aligarh Muslim University, were washed under running tap water for at least 30 min, followed by soaking in 5 % (v/v) Teepol for 5 min. After a thorough washing in sterile distilled water, the source tissues were surface sterilized with 0.1 % (m/v) HgCl 2 for 3 min. Following repeated washes with sterile distilled water, the stem segments were cut into appropriate size (0.5 -1 cm) and transferred onto culture medium.The nutrient medium consisted Murashige and Skoog (1962; MS) salts and vitamins and 3 % (m/v) sucrose was used in all experiments. The pH of medium was adjusted to 5.8 prior to the addition of 0.8 % (m/v) agar and autoclaving at 121 °C and 1.06 kg cm -2 pressure for 20 min. The cultures were incubated at 25 ± 2 °C under 16-h photoperiod (irradiance of 50 µmol m -2 s -1 ) and relative humidity of 60 %.For callus induction from stem segments, four concentrations (0.5 -10 µM) of each 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic ac...