Medicinal Plants - International Journal of Phytomedicines and Related Industries

Psoralea corylifolia Linn. (Babchi) is a rare and endangered herbaceous medicinal plant, distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Its various parts (seeds, roots) are source of valuable alkaloids having pharmaceutical importance. Recently, fetal toxicity of this plant extract has been reported. The plant is conventionally propagated by seeds which are inadequate because of very short viability and presence of hard seed coat which require acid treatment. Usually the plant materials are procured from naturally occurring stands of P. corylifolia which are being depleted rapidly, raising concern about possible extinction and provide justification for in vitro propagation of this species. The present review enumerates some important medicinal properties of this plant and provide information regarding optimization of pharmaceutical compound's extraction, in vitro micropropagation and suggestions for Agrobacterium mediated transformation for higher production of medicinal compounds from root hairs.