In vitro seed culture optimization of Cynanchum tunicatum (Retz.) Alston using Response Surface Methodology

In vitro seed culture is the most successful method of preserving rare, threatened, endangered, and vulnerable medicinal plants. Cynanchum tunicatum (Retz.) Alston is a climbing shrub native to India and Sri Lanka. The plant seeds are used in traditional medicine to treat fever, skin diseases and infections. The plant seed is commercially important, and due to the over-exploitation of the medicinal plant, it may become vulnerable and the seed was collected from Sirumalai forest, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu, India. Producing ample plantlets through the seed culture technique is a boon and overcoming the exploitation of medicinal plants to optimize the experimental factors using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) 2FI Model. Since the significance of abiotic factors plays an importance role in plant tissue culture. This method is an effective statistical technique for analyzing various factors with a number of experimental trials. Hence, this experiment was conducted to optimize the influencing factors such as pH, photoperiod and sucrose concentration on Murashige and Skoog (MS) basal medium. The factors were optimized under various experimental conditions, the maximum percentage (96%) of seed germination was obtained at pH 5.8, photoperiod 16/8 hours with 3% of sucrose on MS basal medium.