In Vitro Cultures of Salvia Officinalis L. : Plant cultures for the production of secondary metabolites

Salvia officinalis L. (common sage) is an aromatic important species, widely used in medicine, cosmetology and food industry. Salviae officinalis folium represent official drug included in the 7th European Pharmacopoeia. Plant biotechnology can offer new opportunities by providing plant material for production of valuable secondary metabolites. In the present book we describe in vitro cultures of common sage as potential source of medicinally important compounds (carnosol, carnosic acid, rosmarinic acid). Various aspects of S. officinalis in vitro cultures such as micropropagation from shoot tips, sage shoot cultures growing on solid and in liquid media, encapsulation of shoot tips for obtaining synthetic seeds, genetic transformation by A. rhizogenes, production of metabolites in obtained cultures were determined and described with details in the book. The antioxidant potential of obtained plant material was also analyzed. The studies allow a look at the potential use in vitro cultures of this medicinal plant as a source of biological active compounds, which may be especially useful to biotechnological industry or anyone else who is interesting in plant in vitro cultures.