ABSTRACT
Medicinal plants are the most important source of life saving drugs for the majority of the world's population. Plant secondary metabolites are the economically important as drug, fragrances, pigments, food additives and pesticides. The biotechnological tools are important to select, multiply, improve and analyse medicinal plants. In vitro techniques considerably improve this potential by the application of nutritional and hormonal systems under aseptic conditions. Plant proliferation by this method is termed micro propagation because miniature shoots or plantlets are initially derived. There are a number of pathways for the regeneration of whole plants from excised plant parts. Two main pathways can be considered, that is, generation through shoot organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis. In vitro propagation of plants holds tremendous potential for the production of high-quality plant-based medicines. Most valuable phytochemicals are products of plant secondary metabolism. The production of secondary metabolites in vitro can be possible through plant cell culture.
