MICROPROPAGATION AND PLOIDY STABILITY OF Lippia lacunosa Mart. & Schauer: AN ENDANGERED BRAZILIAN MEDICINAL PLANT

Abstract

Lippia lacunosa is a Brazilian savanna plant that belongs to the Verbenaceae family. It has been used in folk medicine as a treatment for different diseases. This species represents an endangered Brazilian medicinal plant, and this is the first report documenting a reliable protocol for the in vitro propagation and regeneration of L. lacunosa. Axenic explants were cultivated in MS medium containing different concentrations of naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) to induce root growth. The mean shoot length and the number of roots were highest with 0.06 mg·L-1 NAA. The highest number of buds in shoot regeneration was induced with 2 mg·L-1 6-benzylaminopurine (BA). To obtain a long-term culture, the dwarf shoots were elongated on MS media containing 0.5 mg·L-1 BA alternated with MS containing 2 mg·L-1 BA every 40 days. In the present protocol, the long-term shoots retained the ability to root even after long periods of BA treatment. In addition, we evaluated the nuclear DNA content and ploidy levels, including the occurrence of endopolyploidy, in long-term micropropagated plant leaves using flow cytometry analysis. The plants propagated in vitro over several years possessed nuclear DNA contents ranging from 2.940 to 3.095 pg, and no differences in DNA content were found among in vitro plants or between these plants and the control (L. lacunosa from a greenhouse with a DNA content of 3.08 pg). The flow cytometry analysis also demonstrated that there was no polyploidization. The present study will be useful for biotechnological approaches and provides the first estimate of the nuclear DNA content of this species using flow cytometry.