Research Projects

Picrorhiza kurrooa (kutki) Royle ex Benth. is an endangered high altitude medicinal herb found in the Western Himalayas of India. Its rhizome contains various pharmaceutical properties, including anti-inflammatory, hepatoprotective, neuroprotective, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antiasthmatic activities. The rhizome of 3 to 4 years old plants is suitable for extracting total picrosides for various herbal formulations. However, the plant is listed as an endangered herb due to inadequate cultivation practices and changing climate. To address the demand and supply gap of P. kurrooa, cambial meristematic cells (CMCs) culture offer an alternative platform for large-scale metabolites production in less time. Conventional dedifferentiated cell (DDC) culture is often not commercially feasible due to its large heterogeneity and other difficulties. However, CMCs' robust vitality, cellular uniformity, genetic stability, and structural features overcome these limitations. CMC culturing could be a revolutionary technology for generating high-value picrosides, bridging the gap between demand and supply of raw/source material. Understanding the molecular and biochemical mechanisms involved in the proliferation and differentiation of CMCs is proposed to prevent differentiation and use undifferentiated homogeneous CMCs for picrosides biosynthesis in single-cell cultures. A bioprocess for single-cell suspension cultivation will be developed at the shake-flask level using various biotic and abiotic elicitations to achieve enhanced metabolite production.