Pharmacotherapeutic Potential of Lawsonia inermis L.: Implications and Future Prospective

Henna (Lawsonia inermis) has been found to have both medicinal and commercial uses. The pigment lawsone derived from this plant is the source of Mehendi. The henna plant represents a vast repertoire of secondary metabolites, giving the plant important medicinal properties, like anticarcinogenic, antidiabetic, analgesic, immunostimulatory, and many more. This creates a huge demand pressure, which can’t be met by traditional farming due to the low propagation rate. So, the main objectives of this study involve, the establishment of the plant from lab to land, analysis of the secondary metabolite content of the plant by various assays, to see if in vitro plants have more secondary metabolic accumulation as compared to in vivo plants. To further validate the results, HPLC analysis and comparative transcriptome analysis were done, followed by KEGG analysis of the pathways. Out of the various solvents used for the study, methanol responded best to the secondary metabolic assays. It was also interesting to see that in vitro plants showed a higher accumulation of secondary metabolites than in vivo plants. Comparative transcriptome analysis through the TRAPID platform showed a significant difference between the plant’s transcript sets, showing gene families and enzymes contributing to secondary metabolites being more enriched in vitro plants. KEGG analysis of the pathways showed a large number of pathways related to secondary metabolites for tissue culture grown plants, like terpenoids, phenols, and flavonoid biosynthesis, which can be held responsible for the plant’s wide medicinal and commercial properties. Hence, this work shows that in vitro henna plants have higher secondary metabolite accumulation, with a better propagation rate than traditional farming. These enriched secondary metabolic pathways can make the in vitro plants more efficient for the commercial and medicinal industry, being propagated, in a stable and controlled environment, without exposing the plant to stress, saving the plant from overexploitation.