In vitro Regeneration of White Flax (Linum album Kotschy ex Boiss) Medicinal Plant

Linum album of the member Linaceae is a herbaceous Iranian endemic medicinal plant, having podophyllotoxin (PTOX) metabolite. This important pharmaceutical compound used as a precursor for the synthesis of important antitumor drugs like Etoposide, Teniposide and Etopophos. Plant tissues culture is a appropriate method of increasimg secondary metabolits production. In this research, callus induction were investigated to regeneration under in vitro condition. Calli were initiated from shoot segment of young plant on Murashige and Skoog (MS) culture medium supplemented with (0- 0.4- 0.8- 1- 1.5- 2- 2.5 mg l-1) naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) and (0- 0.2- 0.4 mg l-1 ) kinetin (KIN) in the dark. The heaviest callus were obtained in 2 mg l-1 NAA with 0.4 mg l-1 KIN. Then, calli were transferred to MS medium supplemented with 6-benzyladenine (1-2.5 mg l-1 BA) either alone or in combination with 0.2 mg l-1 NAA for shoot regeneration. The 2.0 mg l-1 BA was identified more effective on shoot regeneration. For induction root from shoots, the optimal result obtained from half-strength MS medium supplemented with 1 mg l-1 NAA.