RAPID In vitro PROPAGATION AND GENETIC FIDELITY EVALUATION OF MEDICINALLY IMPORTANT MEXICAN CORIANDER (Eryngium foetidum L.)

Eryngium foetidum L., a biennial herb has been used tremendously as a medicinal plant mostly in tropical regions of the world. With its wide area of ethno-medicinal uses and the growing sector of ayurvedic medicine have increased demand for the plant. Hence there is an essential need for conservation and cultivation of this plant for the future. Here, an efficient large-scale clonal propagation protocol has been designed using the peduncular part derived from greenhouse-maintained plants. Murashige and Skoog’s (MS) media in addition with 3.0 mg l-1 N6-benzyladenine (BA) and 1.0 mg l-1 Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) was found optimum for shoot proliferation (11.3±0.64 shoots per explant) and root development (24±0.40 roots per shoot) Successive plantlet cultures were established by repeated sub-culturing on a fresh medium after each yield of newly formed shoots. The plantlets were successfully transferred to the soil after acclimatization. The plants have been maintained in field condition for three years. Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR) were used for validating the genetic fidelity of the in vitro generated plants at every four month interval for three years and after analysis, revealing a homogeneous amplification profile for all in vitro plants analysed against the mother plant.