An Enhanced In-Vitro Production of Saponins and Other Bioactives from Bacopa monnieri L. Penn

An important herb Bacopa monnieri commonly called Brahmi, is a well known source of neuroprotective saponins. The whole plant is commercially used in ayurvedic preparations as well as for extracting their bioactives at an industrial level to use them in herbal medicines and hence they are in great demand. Since they are mainly collecting from the wild, the plant is under high anthropogenic pressure. Moreover, the bioactive contents in the wild plants may vary due to environmental influence also. In this scenario, the current study was conducted to develop a biotechnological intervention to produce elite Bacopa plants with uniform bioactives though in vitro direct shoot regeneration of Bacopa monnieri from leaf explants using Murashige and skoog medium containing various growth hormones such as 6-benzyl aminopurine (BAP), Kinetin (KIN) and Thiodizuron (TDZ). Maximum shoot bud (162.33 +/- 21.385) formation was observed in MS media supplemented with 0.2mg/L BAP and the shoot buds were developed into shoots in 4 weeks time. Rooting of these shoots was obtained in MS basal medium. Rooted plants were hardened successfully in in vivo conditions at 98.5% frequency. The in vitro shoots as well as field established plants that were raised through tissue culture were analyzed and compared with the mother plant for their phytochemical constituents with respect to phenols, flavonoids and saponins. Though flavonoids present in the in vitro shoots (277.5 +/- 0.022 mu g/g DW) showed a lesser value in compared with in vivo plants (397.5 +/- 0.080 mu g/g DW), the phenols and saponins present in in vitro plants (26.25 +/- 0.084 mu g/g DW and 92.6 +/- 1.113 mg respectively) were comparable to in vivo plants (27.25 +/- 0.056 mu g/g and 93.1 +/- 1.973 mg respectively). The in vitro culture system developed can be further scaled up to cater the need of this plant in future for industrial purpose.