Organ culture of a precious Chinese medicinal plant - Fritillaria unibracteata

Fritillaria unibracteata is a famous and precious traditional Chinese medic inal plant. The technique of in vitro organ culture of Fritillaria unibract eata has been established and chemical composition of the metabolites have been confirmed. The experimental results indicated that Fritillaria unibrac teata can be rapidly propagated, directly from small cuttings of the bulb b y the technique of organ culture. The cultured bulb can be harvested after a 50-day culture period in MS media supplemented with 4.44 mu M BA and 5.71 mu M IAA. The growth rate was about 30-50 times higher than that under nat ural wild growth conditions. The content of alkaloid and beneficial micro-e lements in the cultured bulbs were higher than found in the wild bulb. It i s therefore possible to establish a novel process to produce this natural p lant drug in future studies and achieve scale-up for industrial production.