In vitro cloning potential and phytochemical evaluations of aneuploid individuals produced from reciprocal crosses between diploid and triploid in Echinacea purpurea L.

Aneuploidy often presents large variations in morphology, physiology, biochemistry, and genetics owing to karyotypic imbalance. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of aneuploid breeding in Echinacea purpurea L, an important medicinal plant. Reciprocal crosses between diploid and triploid plants were performed to generate aneuploid plants. Cross with triploid as female parent resulted in increased production of aneuploid individuals (19 of 23; 82.61%), while using diploid as female parent yielded much higher percentage of diploid progenies (130 of 133; 97.74%). Each aneuploid had particular karyotypic characteristics compared to the parents. The proportions of median, submedian, and subterminal centromere location chromosomes in gross chromosomes among aneuploids and two parents showed large variations. Although aneuploids had relatively lower adventitious bud regeneration rates than their parents, almost half of them looked morphologically normal, with high survival rates when transplanted to ex vitro conditions. Among the bioactive compounds assessed, cichoric acid and chlorogenic acid contents were extremely encouraging. Most aneuploids had higher cichoric acid and chlorogenic acid contents than their parents. For example, A2 had the highest cichoric acid content of 21.98 mg/g dry weight, more than twice the values of diploid and triploid. Meanwhile, A21 had the highest chlorogenic acid content of 1.84 mg/g, approximately five times more than the parental values. Eleven superior aneuploid lines were successfully screened as breeding candidates. The present findings indicated E. purpurea is highly tolerant of karyotypic imbalance and aneuploid plants could serve as prospective breeding resources in E. purpurea .