In vitro production of ephedrine through colchiploidy from Sida sps.

Plants are living factories which synthesize a large number of compounds as secondary metabolites, which are of immense economic value.The genus Sida belonging to the family Malvaceae is a group of angiosperm plants so far used for extraction of ephedrine, which is used in the treatments of rheumatism, heart diseases, troubles in urinary bladder and urethra and malaria. In vitro production of ephedrine from Sida calluses and methods to enhance the ephedrine content by inducing polyploidy was attempted in the present study. Callus was induced from Sida rhombifolia and Sida acuta using leaf explants in half MS medium supplemented with lmgl -1 NAA and 1mgl -1 2,4-D. For ephedrine production the calluses were grown in full MS medium supplemented with 2mgl -1 kinetin, 1mgl -1 NAA and 100mgl -1 L-phenylalanine.The ephedrine content in calluses of both diploid and colchiploid plants was analyzed using HPLC method. Ephedrine yields of colchiploids were 140 times higher than diploid control callus in Sida rhombifolia, while it was only 18 times higher in Sida acuta. This work is a way for furthering our understanding of the effects of ploidy on enhanced ephedrine production.