An Improved Micropropagation and Assessment of Genetic Fidelity in Multipurpose Medicinal Tree, Acacia auriculiformis

An efficient direct plant regeneration protocol has been developed for medicinal tree, Acacia auriculiformis that can be employed at a commercial scale. Bioactive properties of this tree attribute to spermicidal action and anti-HIV activity which has gained an increasing interest in world health sector. Among several media employed for present study, an utmost shoot regeneration frequency of 93 % with highest number 17.3 ± 0.61 of shoots per explant was obtained on MS medium supplemented with 2.0 mg l−1 KIN and 0.5 mg l−1 IAA. Inclusion of activated charcoal in media has effectively alleviated the browning problem of shoots. Maximum shoot length of 6.4 cm was attained on MS media supplemented with 0.25 mg l−1 GA3 followed by rooting of individual microshoots on half strength MS media supplemented with 0.1 mg l−1 IAA. After successful hardening, rooted microshoots were maintained under greenhouse conditions. Genetic stability of micropropagated plants of A. auriculiformis have also been established via randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR) markers. A total of 83 (39 RAPD and 44 ISSR) clear, distinct and reproducible amplicons were produced. The banding patterns and similarity coefficients obtained by both RAPD and ISSR analysis have revealed no remarkable differences between tissue culture raised plants and the mother plant. This is the first report that evaluates the use of genetic markers to establish genetic fidelity of micropropagated A. auriculiformis. This method can be applied for the rapid clonal multiplication and true-to-type production of plant for attaining the ever increasing demand in pharmaceutical industries.