Callus induction and maintenance of callus culture in andrograhis paniculata nees-an important medicinal plant

Andrographis paniculata is commonly used as medicinal plant to cure several diseases worldwide and in Malaysia, it is known as hempedu bumi by the local residents and is generally used in treating fever, cold. The major compound in the andrographis plant is andrographolide which is responsible for many medicinal properties. As the demand for medicinal plant increases, more plant need to be grown to meet the rising demand of the people. To overcome that, tissue culture techniques are used to grow the plant in vitro to proliferate the plants by using just the explant. In this research, the embryo of the A. paniculata is used as the explant to induce callus. The embryos are cultivated on medium fortified with plant growth regulators auxins (IAA and NOA) and cytokinin (BAP and Kinetin). The response rate and amount of callus induced from embryos cultivated on each concentration was recorded and SPSS is used for statistical analysis. Analaysis of varience (P5.0.05) is used to compare diversity indices. HPLC analysis was done to identify the amount of the andrographolide presence in the culture. From this research, the highest response rate is found IAA 1.0mg/L and NOA+BAP (1.0+1.0mg/L). The best hormone combination for callus induction was observed in MS media fortified with N0A+Kinetin (1.0+1.0mg/L). From the HPLC analysis, the highest amount of andrographolide was induced by NOA+BAP (1.0+0.5mg/L) which is 26.32pg. Second highest amount of andrographolide were induced by NOA+Kinetin (1.0+0.5mg/L) which is 21.25 pg. The best callus from NOA+Kinetin (1.0+1.0mg/L) does not show any result for detection for andrographolide compound, however, it consists of other prominent compound found in A. paniculata Nees. which can be identified by doing further research. For the induction of callus, NOA+BAP (1.0+0.5mg/L) is the most suitable combination of hormones for production of andrographolide.