Current Status of Doubled Haploids in Medicinal Plants

Although herbs, spices, medicinal, and nutraceutical plants have been used in human health for millennia, there has been renewed interest over the past number of years. In the past, people have relied on landraces or "wild" plants as there has been very little breeding or genetics done on these species. This is changing as consumers are demanding scientific evidence for the medical claims (clinical trials) as well as uniformity in the products. Doubled haploidy would be one way in which to achieve homozygous, true-breeding lines. Haploidy response, i.e. callus, embryos, regenerated haploid/doubled haploid plants, have been reported in a number of medicinal/nutraceutical species, however the frequency of response is low compared to other species. This review will focus on a few of the major plant families with medicinal properties.