Basana Gouda S¹*, C Suneetha², Nagesha N³, P Venkatesha Murthy⁴ and Nirmala KS⁴

¹Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences, G.K.V.K, Bengaluru, Karnataka – 560065, India
²Associate Professor, Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences, G.K.V.K, Bengaluru, Karnataka – 560065, India
³Professor, Department of Plant Biotechnology, College of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences, G. K.V.K, Bengaluru, Karnataka – 560065, India
⁴Professor, Department of Horticulture, College of Agriculture, University of Agricultural Sciences, G.K.V.K, Bengaluru, Karnataka – 560065, India

*Corresponding Author: Basana Gouda S, Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Horticulture, UAS, GKVK, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.

Received: January 05, 2026; Published: January 09, 2025

Abstract

Eulophia nuda Lindl., a terrestrial medicinal orchid valued in traditional medicine for treating tumours, respiratory ailments, skin disorders, gastrointestinal problems, and used as an appetizer, vermifuge, and aphrodisiac, is increasingly threatened in the wild due to overharvesting and habitat degradation. Given its ethnobotanical importance and declining natural populations, understanding its phytochemical composition is critical for both conservation and sustainable medicinal use. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the phytochemical profiles of in vitro derived hardened and wild-collected tubers to assess metabolite retention under controlled propagation. Tubers from in vitro derived hardened plantlets and mature wild plants were extracted with 80% methanol, followed by qualitative analysis using Liquid Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (LC–MS). Ten major phenolic and flavonoid compounds were detected in wild tubers, including quercetin, kaempferol, rutin, apigenin, isorhamnetin, p-coumaric acid, chlorogenic acid, ferulic acid, caffeic acid, and gallic acid. In vitro–derived hardened tubers retained eight of these compounds, with apigenin and gallic acid absent, indicating a qualitative chemical similarity of 83.3% with wild tubers. The selective loss of certain compounds was attributed to the absence of environmental stressors and ecological cues in controlled hardening conditions. The study demonstrated that in vitro propagation effectively preserved core phenolic and flavonoid pathways while highlighting stress-dependent metabolite varia- tion, providing insights for conservation-driven utilization and sustainable medicinal exploitation of this endangered orchid species.

 Keywords: Conservation; Flavonoids; In vitro Propagation; LC–MS; Phenolic Compounds

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Citation

Citation: Basana Gouda S., et al. “Phytochemical Profiling of Wild and In vitro Derived Hardened Tubers of the Endangered Medicinal Orchid Eulophia nuda Lindl.". Acta Scientific Agriculture 10.1 (2026): 03-08.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2026 Basana Gouda S., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.