Profile of secondary metabolites and genetic stability analysis in new lines of Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench micropropagated via somatic embryogenesis

Abstract

Abstract Echinacea purpurea (L.) Moench is a plant species important for the phytopharmaceutical industry and in horticulture. Currently, there is lack of standardized plant material with an increased content of secondary metabolites in purple coneflower. The following research meets the expectations of the industry, as new selected lines of purple coneflower were micropropagated by somatic embryogenesis. The plant lines were analyzed both in terms of the content of main secondary metabolites by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), as well as the genetic stability within the line and the genetic distance between lines using Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Inter-Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) genetic markers. Significant differences were found in the relative percentage composition of individual phenolic acids in the tested plant material. Among six selected lines of Echinacea purpurea, three were characterized by a higher content of cichoric acid in relation to the other lines studied. A higher mean polymorphism rate (>90%) was found with the RAPD technique, with a total of 1427 scorable bands produced (142.7 products per one primer). Unlike the RAPD analysis, ISSRs detected mostly monomorphic loci (63.4%), followed by polymorphic ones (36.6%), while there were no specific loci present. Cluster analysis of both marker systems showed that the tested genotypes were grouped according to their respective lines.