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Adventitious root cultures of Clitoria ternatea L. and its potential as a memory enhancer alternative

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Abstract

Clitoria ternatea L., known as the butterfly pea plant, is from the Fabaceae family and is commonly used in traditional medicine or as a brain tonic in Asia. The root extracts of C. ternatea have been previously studied for its neuroprotective properties linked to memory enhancement of the mammalian brain, indirectly delaying the occurrence of neurodegenerative diseases. The current study aims to establish in vitro adventitious root cultures of C. ternatea via cotyledon explants and to identify the phytoconstituents of the induced adventitious roots. In this study, the highest percentage of induction (95.24%) was achieved in half-strength MS medium supplemented with 2.50 mg/L NAA (1-naphthaleneacetic acid) after 6 weeks of culture. Results also indicated that the supplementation of 1.50 mg/L NAA induced the highest number of adventitious roots (12.86 ± 2.14), while 2.50 mg/L 4-Cl-IAA (4-chloroindole-3-acetic acid) yielded higher adventitious root length (0.75 ± 0.13 cm) in comparison with the other auxin treatments. Microscopic analysis indicated thicker in vitro root morphology for all NAA treatments in comparison with the roots of in vitro seedling. Ethanolic extract of in vitro-generated adventitious roots showed potential anti-acetylcholinesterase activities (IC50 = 1519.89 ± 0.18 μg/mL) albeit being lower than the control (IC50 = 70.37 ± 0.01 μg/mL), while gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis identified the presence of pentacyclic triterpenes, phytosterols and fatty acids in the adventitious root culture that are linked to the mammalian neuroprotective properties of C. ternatea. The current investigation reports on the potential of C. ternatea root cultures being further utilized to produce valuable metabolites linked to the mammalian memory enhancement.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia for funding the project under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (Grant code: 203/PBIOLOGI/6711902). They thank Universiti Sains Malaysia and the Agricultural Crop Trust (Malaysia) for the support towards this project.

Funding

The project was funded by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (Grant code: 203/PBIOLOGI/6711902).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Penang, Malaysia

    Rui Xuan Lee, Sreeramanan Subramaniam & Bee Lynn Chew

  2. Centre for Drug Research, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Penang, Malaysia

    Zurina Hassan

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  1. Rui Xuan Lee
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  2. Zurina Hassan
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  3. Sreeramanan Subramaniam
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by RXL. The first draft of the manuscript was written by RXL and BLC. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Bee Lynn Chew.

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Lee, R.X., Hassan, Z., Subramaniam, S. et al. Adventitious root cultures of Clitoria ternatea L. and its potential as a memory enhancer alternative. Plant Biotechnol Rep 15, 163–176 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11816-021-00664-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11816-021-00664-7

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