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2444 J. Med. Plants Res.<br />

production of desirable medicinal compounds from plants<br />

(Ramachandra and Ravishankar, 2002). On a global<br />

scale, medicinal plants are mainly used as crude drugs<br />

and extracts. Several of the more potent and active<br />

substances are employed as isolated compounds,<br />

including many alkaloids such as morphine (pain killer),<br />

codeine (antitussive), papaverine (phosphordiesterase<br />

inhibitor) and various types of cardiac glycosides (heart<br />

insufficiency) (Wink et al., 2005). The capacity for plant<br />

cell, tissue, and organ cultures to produce and<br />

accumulate many of the same valuable chemical<br />

compounds as the parent plant in nature has been<br />

recognized almost since the inception of in vitro<br />

technology. The strong and growing demand in today’s<br />

market place for natural, renewable products has<br />

refocused attention on in vitro plant materials as potential<br />

factories for secondary phytochemical products, and has<br />

paved the way for new research exploring secondary<br />

product expression in vitro. Plant-produced secondary<br />

compounds have been incorporated into a wide range of<br />

commercial and industrial applications, and fortuitously,<br />

in many cases, rigorously controlled plant in vitro cultures<br />

can generate the same valuable natural products. Plants<br />

and plant cell cultures have served as resources for<br />

flavors, aromas and fragrances, biobased fuels and<br />

plastics, enzymes, preservatives, cosmetics<br />

(cosmeceuticals), natural pigments, and bioactive<br />

compounds (Karuppusamy, 2009).<br />

In the present investigation, this paper describes the<br />

isolation of the secondary metabolite (betalain pigment)<br />

from the callus mass of Z. decandra by altering various<br />

growth hormones and adjuvants.<br />

MATERIALS AND METHODS<br />

Z. decandra L. were collected from in and around Mysore University<br />

campus, Karnataka and maintained as stock plants in the<br />

Departmental garden. Stem explants were utilized for investigation.<br />

Explants were thoroughly washed in running tap water for 30 min<br />

followed by 5% (v/v) liquid detergent laboline for 5 min. Then<br />

washed in distilled water and followed by surface sterilization in<br />

0.1% (w/v) mercuric chloride solution for 2 to 3 min for stem<br />

explants. After surface disinfection the material was thoroughly<br />

washed in sterile distilled water 4 times. Then stem explants were<br />

aseptically cut into pieces of required sizes and they were<br />

inoculated on MS medium supplemented with different<br />

concentrations and combinations of auxins and cytokinins. All the<br />

media contained 3% (w/v) sucrose. All the cultures were maintained<br />

at the temperature of 25±2°C under 16 h photoperiod and<br />

maintained for the callus formation.<br />

For realizing the pigments the following experiment has been<br />

done. The weight of violet red coloured callus obtained has been<br />

measured. 862 mg of fresh weight (FW) of callus having violet red<br />

colour was aseptically removed from the culture flask, macerated<br />

and extracted the pigment with cold water (temperature

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