Establishment of the Shoot and Callus Culture of an Important Medicinal Plant Plumbago zeylanica

Medicinal plants are one of the important sources of natural products, which include essential oils, fragrances, pigments, feedstock, and pharmaceuticals. They are of great interest to the researches in biotechnology field as most of the pharmaceutical industries depend on them Chand et al. [1]. Plumbago zeylanica is an important medicinal plant which belongs to the Plumbaginaceae family. It is commonly known as Chitrak and Lead word. The plants consists of various bioactive compounds like alkaloids, naphtha quinones, flavonoids, glycoside, steroids, Saponin, phenolic compounds, triterpenoids, coumarins, tannins, carbohydrate, fixed oils, fats, and proteins are present in different plant parts which has been reported to show antibacterial Uma Devi et al. [3], anti-plasmodial, hepato protective, central nervous system stimulatory activity, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-hyperglycemic, anti-atherosclerotic activity Kumar et al. [3] anti-tumor, anti-cancer Roy et al. [4] etc. Propagation of this plant through seed is not reliable due to its poor germination under natural conditions. Pharmaceutical companies procured the plant material from wild and which leads to the depletion of this plant rapidly. This raises the concern about extinction of this. Due to the increasing need of this plant, an alternative technology to the conventional method in improvement of crop is to utilize the biotechnological approaches. In-vitro propagation is currently used to a large number of medicinally important plants for the multiplication and conservation. Earlier reports suggest that this plant can be multiplied by in-vitro propagation Rout, Wei & Sivanesan, et al. [5,6,7]. Looking at the importance of Plumbago zeylanica, in this study an effort has been done to investigate the role of different cytokinin and auxin elicitors on the growth of the plant. Different types of cytokinins and auxin provide shoot multiplication and callus induction. The present study describes the optimum condition for shoot multiplication and establishment of callus culture from nodal and leaf explants of Plumbago zeylanica. Materials and Methods