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Conservation of Endangered Medicinal Plants by In Vitro Propagation Methods

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Bioprospecting of Tropical Medicinal Plants

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Abstract

Majority of the human cultures depend on many plants as a valuable source of medicines in various worldwide traditional medicinal systems. The utilization of these plants is increasing rapidly worldwide with the growing demand for natural products and drugs. Therefore, many plants are now threatened with extinction in the past decades due to severe human interference. Pharmacologically significant plants should be conserved from overexploitation, uncontrolled collection, heavy deforestation, and habitat destruction. For the large-scale propagation of such medicinal plants, conventional methods become difficult as pharmaceutical industries require. There is a great surge of public interest in in vitro propagation of endangered plants for conservation strategies and the mass production of secondary metabolites through different culture methods. Thus, the in vitro plant tissue culture techniques are efficient plant regeneration methods for the sustainable production of pharmacologically important plant species. So, the conservation of endangered medicinal plants having medicinal properties is necessary for future generations. This chapter reviews the in vitro propagation and conservation of some important endangered medicinal plants with special emphasis on their pharmacological activities. These micropropagation techniques are vital for producing disease-free plant materials with desirable pharmacological features.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

    M. V. Lakshmi, S. Jeyaraj & T. S. Swapna

Authors
  1. M. V. Lakshmi
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  2. S. Jeyaraj
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  3. T. S. Swapna
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Studies in Stem Cells Cell Therapy and Toxicological Genetics (CeTroGen), Graduate Program in Health and Development in the Midwest RegionFaculty of Medicine (FAMED)Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS) Campo Grande, Cidade Universitária, Pioneiros, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

    Karuppusamy Arunachalam

  2. Key Laboratory for Wild Plant Resources, Kunming Institute of Botany, Kunming, Yunnan, China

    Xuefei Yang

  3. Department of Botany, NSS College Nemmara, Palakkad, Kerala, India

    Sreeja Puthanpura Sasidharan

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Lakshmi, M.V., Jeyaraj, S., Swapna, T.S. (2023). Conservation of Endangered Medicinal Plants by In Vitro Propagation Methods. In: Arunachalam, K., Yang, X., Puthanpura Sasidharan, S. (eds) Bioprospecting of Tropical Medicinal Plants. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28780-0_42

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