Composition of the volatile oil, tissue culture and micro-regeneration optimization of wild Yarrow (Achillea biebersteinii)

Achillea biebersteinii is a perennial herbaceous medicinal plant that belongs to Compositae family with useful properties, such as: anti-diaphoretic, antihemorrhagic, antiinflammation, antibiotic, antifungal and antioxidant effects. The objectives were; to determine the composition of essential oil components with the use of GC and GC/MS. Forty–two components were found and 98% of the identified oil constitunts categorized with above medicinal properties were; 1, 8 cineole (30.9%), cis-ascaridole (12.8%), alpha-terpinene (9.6%), alpha-terpineole(6.3%) and camphor (4.3%), with 37 minor extra components. Therefore, efforts have been directed to micro-propagation through in vitro culture with a view to producing secondary metabolites. So in this research, tissue culture has been optimized in four stages. At first seeds were sterilized then placed in different proportions of MS media. After 10 days the young seedlings emerged and after cutting their roots, were placed on MS media supplemented with different concentrations of BAP (2, 5, 10 mg/lit) in order to study its effects on Shoot induction. At 5 and 10 mg/lit both shoot and callus formed (with higher proportion at 5 mg/lit). At this stage, three characters of young seedlings have been analyzed: The number of leave/ the length of leave and the length of the tallest leave. In the third stage, young seedlings have been placed on MS media with no growth regulator. Then, the young seedlings were transferred to MS media supplemented with 2 mg/lit IBA. The best media for incubator use were MS media supplemented with 5 and 10 mg/lit of BAP.