ABSTRACT
Medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) are an important natural source of essential medicines for humans. Worldwide, medicinal and aromatic plants are widely collected from their natural habitats and used to prepare drugs, a practice which is known to affect the population density of approximately 15,000 MAPs. Today, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) indicates that thousands of plant species are at risk of extinction due to habitat loss, overuse, deforestation, and deficiencies in ongoing conservation information. Modern biotechnological methods such as in vitro micropropagation, can play an important role in the production of high-quality plant-derived drugs. Selection, propagation, and ex situ conservation of critical, endangered, and critically endangered MAPs can be achieved in a shorter time as compared with traditional methods, using biotechnological methods, in particular in vitro techniques. The regeneration and preservation of endangered MAPs with in vitro techniques enable the continuous and uniform production of pharmacologically active substances. This chapter gives information about the conservation of MAPs using in vitro techniques.
