Assessment of Genetic Diversity and Artemisinin Content Among Genotypes of Artemisia Annua and Related Species Collected from the Ladakh Region India

Abstract

Artemisia annua L. is an important medicinal plant from which artemisinin was extracted to treat malaria effectively. Artemisinin is isolated from the aerial part of the A. annua. The recent works of several groups show that artemisinin is currently the most effective malaria drug and is the World Health Organization s currently recommended medicine in treating malaria as combination therapy with commonly used antimalarials. Artemisinin also shows promise as a potential therapeutic agent for other parasitic and viral diseases as well as for the treatment of certain cancers and the reduction of angiogenesis. A. annua still remain one of the major sources of drug in the traditional and modern system of medicine throughout the world. Therefore, the world market for products including artemisinin derivatives is now growing rapidly, and the demand for artemisinin is increasing. At present, artemisinin compounds are derived from a raw substance extracted from the plant A. annua because artemisinin is very difficult to synthesise. Harvesting from the main source of raw material, of A. annua L. is causing loss of genetic diversity and habitat destruction. Cultivation of this plant is a viable alternative and can overcome cultivation difficulties of it. Artemisinin content varies greatly between populations of A. annua from the Ladakh region. Therefore, it would be inefficient, environmentally destructive and economically unsound to randomly harvest A. annua. In order to develop strategies for commercial cultivation of A. annua as an economically viable alternative crop, it would be essential to evaluate the natural populations of A. annua for artemisinin content and agronomic traits in the Ladakh region. Appropriate methods of conservation management should be adopted including in situ conservation and germplasm collection from the remaining populations with great genetic variations. newline