The Echinacea species

The Echinacea species
Onica Dana 1 *, Cachita Dorina 1
1 University of Oradea, Faculty of Science, Specialty of Biology
*Corresponding author: Email: onicad2002@yahoo.com
Abstract The Echinacea species, a member of the sunflower family
(Compositae or Asteraceae), are native to North America and has a long
history of medicinal use [1,2]. The genus Echinacea has found exclusively
in the U.S. and Canada [3]. They have been introduced as cultivated
medicinal plants in Europe. The three most common and widespread
species (Echinacea angustifolia, E. pallida and E. purpurea), have long
been recognized as important medicinal plants and were used by Native
Americans for the treatment of many diseases, including colds,
toothaches, snake bites, rabies and wound infections [4]. For both
commercial production of Echinacea varietes and rehabilitation of wild
populations, the development of efficient in vitro production of large
quantities of plants by micropropagation is needed [5].
Key words: Echinacea
species, taxonomic study,
medicinal plants, “in vitro”
regeneration,micropropagation.
Introduction
Echinacea, better known as purple
coneflower, has received a global attention because
there is enormous potential for the discovery of new
medicinal compounds in this species.
Echinacea is distributed in dry prairies from
Texas and from west of the Rocky mountains to
Minnesota [6]. In the last few years, the areas of
cultivation of Echinacea extended beyond North
America and Europe into South America, Australia and
other areas of the world [7].
According to an early taxonomic treatment by
McGregor (1968), there are nine species of Echinacea
in North America, of witch three (E. angustifolia, E.
pallida, and E. purpurea) are normally cultivated and
used for commercial production [8]. A recent
morphometric analysis of Echinacea has led to a
revision of the genus [9], in witch only four species (E.
purpurea, E. atrorubens, E. laevigata, and E. pallida)
and eight varieties of Echinacea has supported (E.
atrorubens var. atrorubens, E. atrorubens var.
neglecta, E. atrorubens var. paradoxa, E. pallida var.
angustifolia, E. pallida var. pallida, E. pallida var.
sanguinea, E. pallida var. simulate and E. pallida var.
tennesseensis). Various species are often misidentified.
There are many morphological similarities between the
species, especially between E. angustifolia and E.
pallida. That specimens are often confused in the
medicinal plant market. In the products prepared from
E. pallida and E. angustifolia, the roots are typically
used, whereas for E. purpurea, juice from the fresh
leaves, stems and flowers are most often, though roots
are sometimes included [10]. A recent NAPRALERT
search revealed that there have been at least 86 human
clinical trials of Echinacea preparations demonstrating
efficacy as an immunostimulant, anesthetic,
antioxidant analgesic, and diaphoretic. In the literature
of E. purpurea have been reported a number of 216
different medicinally active compounds.
Botanical characterization
Echinacea angustifolia (DC) Moench comes
from the fact that it has narrow leaves. The plant is a
perennial one, which a height of 120-140 cm. The root
have grey-brown colour and being 10-15 cm long. The
leaves are lanceolate to linera-lanceolate, with a long
basic petiole and the flowers are grouped in conic-oval
anthodium, thorn-shaped when they are dried. The
flowers which are cone-shaped disks with purple, pale
pink, or rarely white spreading ray flowers, and ligulate
are sterile, with three toothed ligule to the external part
and the tubular flowers are to the interior part and they
are hermaphrodites and orange-like coloures. The fruit
is an edged and a 2-4 mm long achene. The plant is
covered of rigid 1.8-2 mm tector hairs [11]. Echinacea
pallida Nutt. name is comes from the Greek term
echinos (=hedgehog) referring to the fact that it has a
thorn-like shaped fruit and the same colour of
anthodium. The inflorescences are formed of tubular
flowers of orange-yellow colour to their internal part
and ligulate flowers of pink-purplish blue colour. The
whole plant is covered with tector hairs which are
shaped of 2-5 cells and which are rigid and 1.8-2 cm
height, with a filled basis and a sharp end. Their
presence gives rigidity to plant. The fruit is an edged,
white coloured, 2-4 mm long achene [12]. Echinacea
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purpurea (L.) Moench is bush-like shaped, with 80-
100 cm height. Its roots have many ramifications
which are oblique positioned and they are light-brown
coloured. The stem has red coloured basis and ends and
oval-lanceolate, 5-nervation leaves, the basic ones
being long petiolate and the top ones are sessile and
short petiolate.
The flowers are grouped in inflorescences
anthodium. These ones are large, having the involucre
shaped of three types of folioles. The ligules are
intensely red coloured and the frit is represented by an
edged achene, white coloured, with a rudimentary
pappus, coronule shaped and having a 3-5 mm size.
The plant has short, rigid hairs.
Fig.3 Structure of caftaric acid C 13 H 12 O 9
Fig. 4 Structure of chlorogenic acid C 16 H 18 O 9
Secundary metabolites of Echinacea
Higher plants produce a great variety of
secondary metabolites, which have been used as
pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and food additives.
Recent advance in the techniques and applications of
plant cell and organ cultures have made it possible to
produce these valuable secondary metabolites in large
scale. Moreover, plant cell culture system provide
various ways to boost yields of desired metabolites,
conveniently and cost effectively [13]. Echinacea
purpurea is a medicinal plant, which has shown
antioxidative, antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal
properties, and is used in the tratment for common
cold, as well as respiratory and urinary diseases [14].
The main bioactive constituents are caffeic acid
derivatives (Fig. 1), alkylamides, polyacetylenes and
polysaccharides [15]. Whith regard to caffeic acid
derivatives, several compounds have been identified
from hydrophilic fraction of E. purpurea, which
revealed that caftaric acid (Fig. 3), chichoric acid (Fig.
2) and chlorogenic acid (Fig. 4) are the important ones.
Fig. 1 Structure of caffeic acid C 9 H 8 O 4
Fig. 2 Structure of cichoric acid C 22 H 18 O 12
Echinacea biotechnology
For rehabilitation of wild population of
Echinacea varietes and for comercial production of
Echinacea species, the development of efficient in
vitro production of large quatities of plants by
micropropagation is nedeed. Regeneration of mature
shoots from callus and suspension cultures is a critical
requirement for the application of in vitro selection [5].
In vitro tissue culture of Echinacea can play a
vital role in the development of novel germplasm,
rapid multiplication, and genetic modification for an
enhanced phytochemical production.
Recent establishment of liquid culture
techniques, large-scale bioreactors, and
Agrobacterium-mediated transformation are changing
the production parameters of the Echinacea species
[16]. A new method provides an efficient system of
adventitious shoot regeneration from leaf explants of
E. purpurea that will useful for micropropagation of
elite ornamental or chemotype selection of this
medicinal species. In addition, this regeneration
system, combined with Agrobacterium transformation,
provides a method for routine genetic transformation of
this important medicinal species.
Micropropagation of three Echinacea species,
E. purpurea Moench., E. angustifolia DC., and E.
pallida Nutt., was investigated as a potential means of
germplast preservation of species faced with
overcollection in the wild and rapid clonal propagation
of elite individuals with unique medicinal or
ornamental properties. Very high contamination rates
occured with shoot-tip explants but not with nodal
segments [17].
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In vitro regeneration and production offers
many advantages for the growth of medicinal plants in
general and more specifically Echinacea as it offers the
capacity to optimize all growth conditions [18].
There have been several previous reports of in
vitro regeneration in the literature from E. purpurea
and E. tennesseensis - Coker and Camper, 1999;
Choffe et al., 2000; Koroch et al., 2002; Mechanda et
al., 2003; Zobayed and Saxena, 2003; Sauve et al.,
2004; Jones et al., 2006 - and two reports of
agrobacterium-mediated transformation in this species
- Koroch et al., 2002b; Wang and To, 2004 - however,
a wide range of different responses have been observed
in explants cultured on identical culture medium and
Conclusions
1. Important morphological and anatomical
characteristics of Echinacea plants are
described for the purpose of
pharmacognostical identification of the drugs.
2. Direct multiple shoot production from leaf
explants is critical to produce a large number
of uniform plants from the elite lines of
mature E. purpurea plants.
3. The high efficiency regeneration method from
mature plants of E. purpurea is useful for the
evaluation of native populations for desired
chemicals. This will help in developing
regeneration protocols for the near-extinct
varietes and other species of Echinacea.
4. Other Echinacea species have been
propagated in vitro from root, hypocotyls,
cotyledon, stem and from leaf explants. That
study was undertaken to develop a
regeneration protocol for the mass
propagation and preservation of the rare
Echinacea species.
5. The plant production can be scheduled
throughout the year since the entire process is
completed in a controlled environment
ensuring a year round supply of high quality
product as well as increasing the economic
viability for the producer.
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