The Laboratory of Plant Tissue Cultures at the Department of Crop Sciences and Agroforestry deals, among others, with in vitro mitotic polyploidization of medicinal plants. One of the latest results is a new, autotetraploid genotype of thyme with a higher content of essential oils. The concentration of thymol, important monoterpenoid phenol found in the oil of thyme, increased by 18%.
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris L., Lamiaceae) is used as a medicinal plant in the treatment of headaches, diarrhea, constipation, warts, and kidney failure.
Increasing the number of chromosomes by polyploidization may increase the content of secondary metabolites and may cause morphological, anatomical and physiological changes. Detection and selection of polyploids is performed by our laboratory using flow cytometry.
The team researching the polyploidization of medicinal plants led by Eloy Fernández Cusimamani and consist of Yamen Homaidan Shmeit, Ingrid Melnikovova and Rohit Bharati.
