In Vitro Propagation and Phytochemical Screening of Some Important Medicinal Plants of Northern India-A Review

Abstract

Plants are indispensable for the preservation of human life. They supply us with oxygen, food, fuel, and shelter while also holding a crucial role in disease treatment, such as cancer, diabetes, and tumors. Medicinal plants are harnessed across various cultures and nations as medicinal precursors. In today's era, biotechnological methods like tissue culture are vital for selecting, multiplying, and conserving medicinal plant genotypes. Regeneration under in vitro conditions notably enhances the production of high-quality plant-based medicines. Plant tissue culture techniques offer a unified approach for producing standardized phytopharmaceuticals, yielding consistent plant material for physiological characterization and active phytoconstituent assessment. While many medicinal plants are successfully regenerated under in vitro conditions, there are certain species that continue to be cultivated in soil, with their large-scale development through micropropagation remaining uncommon. The micropropagation technique employed for cloning these medicinal plants involves the utilization of various concentrations of plant growth regulators within a media variant (MS 1962). The process of plant regeneration is achieved through both organogenesis and embryogenesis, facilitated by the supplementation of auxins and cytokinins. In this context, this chapter provides a concise overview of the integrated micropropagation culture system designed for the effective propagation of medicinally significant specimens.