Callus Culture in Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don: A Survey of Induction Strategies, Growth Optimization, and Biotechnological Applications

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-821-4_3How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Catharanthus roseus; Callus culture; Plant tissue culture; Terpenoid indole alkaloids; Vincristine; Vinblastine; Secondary metabolites; Plant growth regulators; Explants; Elicitation; Morphogenesis

Abstract

Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don owes its place among medicinally important plants to a chemical repertoire of more than 200 bioactive compounds, among them the terpenoid indole alkaloids vincristine and vinblastine, both still central to cancer chemotherapy regimens decades after their discovery. Because these molecules occur in only trace amounts in the intact plant, and because pharmaceutical demand for them has not slackened, workers in the field have spent several decades looking for production routes that do not depend entirely on field cultivation. Callus culture has proved to be one of the more workable answers: an in vitro system useful not only for propagation and germplasm conservation but, under favourable conditions, for raising the yield of secondary metabolites as well. Whether a given culture succeeds or not tends to come down to a small set of interacting variables — which explant is chosen, what the medium is made of, which combination of growth regulators is applied, and the physical conditions under which the tissue is incubated. Hormones in particular govern induction, proliferation and the eventual fate of the callus, while nutrient supply, pH, light regime and temperature shape both how much biomass accumulates and how actively metabolites are synthesised. This review pulls together what is currently known about callus culture in C. roseus, starting with the underlying biology of callus formation and the dedifferentiation–redifferentiation cycle, moving through the practical factors that govern initiation and growth, and then considering how researchers typically characterise the callus they obtain. It goes on to examine applications in alkaloid production, whole-plant regeneration and elicitor-based strategies for boosting metabolite output, before closing with the obstacles that still limit the field and the directions from which further progress seems most likely, particularly metabolic engineering and related biotechnological tools. Read together, the available literature points to callus culture as one of the more durable platforms for the sustainable production of pharmaceutically valuable compounds from C. roseus.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Kavita Yadav
AU  - Anjum Bano
AU  - Raghunandan Nathawat
AU  - Preenon Bagchi
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/31
TI  - Callus Culture in Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don: A Survey of Induction Strategies, Growth Optimization, and Biotechnological Applications
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems Design And Intelligent Applications (ICISDA 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 14
EP  - 26
SN  - 1951-6851
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-821-4_3
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-821-4_3
ID  - Yadav2026
ER  -