In vitro salt tolerance induced secondary metabolites production in Abrus precatorius L.

The genus Abrus Adans. includes about 18 species which belongs to the family Leguminosae and native to Africa, Madagascar, India and Indo-China (Swanepoel and Kolberg, 2011). The generic name, Abrus is derived from the Greek word habro which means delicate, elegant, pretty or soft in reference to the leaflets (Lewis et al., 2015). Among the species, white seeded Abrus precatorius L. is a garden ornamental plant characterized by climbing, twining or trailing vine with slender branches. It is commonly known as ‘white kunni’ in Malayalam and ‘kunch’ in Bengali. The plant is best known for its white seeds which are used as beads and in percussion instruments. The species contain various kinds of alkaloids such as glycerrhizin, precol, abrol, abrasion, abrin A and abrin B (Joshi and Joshi, 2000). Moreover, the presence of abrin indicates the toxicity of white seeds. In addition to the toxic effect, the plant parts have many medicinal properties due to the presence of different secondary metabolites that including antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and antitumor activities (Roy et al., 2012).