In vitro and in vivo Production of Gingerols and Zingiberene in Ginger Plant (Zingiber officinale Roscoe)

      Ginger plant, Zingiber officinale Roscoe, is an important tropical plant used as spices and well known for its medicinal properties. It has a pungent and aromatic rhizome rich of zingiberen and gingerols. Many secondary metabolites are known to accumulate in the plant cell culture systems. So, in this research, gingerols and zingiberene production of callus cultures were compared with regenerated plant in vitro and glasshouse cultivated ginger in vivo. The experiment was conducted in a randomized treatment design with 4 replicates. Ginger rhizomes were imported from china and were cultured in dark at 28±2 °C for 30 days for sprouting and then were cut to small pieces (2-3 cm) and sterilized, and then the rhizomes were cut into 5 mm sized pieces. Bud explants were inoculated on different sterile medium at 25±2 °C under 16 L/8D photoperiod for 2 months. For in vivo culture, the ginger rhizome’s surface was sterilized by using 1 g of l-1 of benomyle fungicide solution then was cut into small unique pieces and kept in perlite in control condition for 2 weeks for germination. Then unique sprouting seedlings were transferred to hydroponic system including Hoagland’s solution for 3 months. Fresh calli, in vitro and in vivo gingers rhizomes were used for extraction with dichloromethane and analyzed by TLC. No gingerols and zingiberene spots on calli plates were detected, but in vitro and in vivo ginger rhizomes produced gingerols and zingiberene. Therefore, callus culture of ginger is proposed for rapid proliferation of plant cells.