Gomaa Sara Emad El Din

Datura, from Field to Biotechnology Gomaa Sara Emad El Din

One of the most important medicinal plant species is Datura, which is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional medicine. If its leaves or juice consumed, the person will become dumb (unable to speak). The dry flower, particularly the violet colored, if rolled and used like cigar, will help to relieve the asthma or wheezing like symptoms. The protocol presented here can be used for the production of medicinally important tropane alkaloids by the pharmaceutical industry, which will lead to economic considerations. Genetic modification of plants to improve their alkaloid induction is a possible way of increasing and improving the medicinal production. Establishing callus culture from both D. metel and D. stramonium plants and using sodium chloride and aluminum chloride as elicitors in plant culture medium is a powerful tool for scopolamine and atropine accumulation improvement.