Copyright © 2018 Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7 (4.14) (2018) 102-106 International Journal of Engineering & Technology Website: www.sciencepubco.com/index.php/IJET Research paper Effect of Different basal Media on Callus Growth and Morphology of Barringtonia Racemosa L Endosperms Explant N D A Kamaruzzaman 1 , A Saleh, F Pardi 2 , N Ahmat 3 , N J Sidik 4 *. Faculty of Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia. Corresponding author Email: norri536@salam.uitm.edu.my Abstract Barringtonia racemosa L. has many medicinal properties especially the fruit and leaf parts. The fruits are used to relief pain and inflam- mation, the leaves were proved to control high blood pressure whereas the roots barks are effective to treat chicken pox. Due to its me- dicinal importance for human health, it is essential to conserve this plant. A comparative study of different types of media was performed to study its effect on callus growth of endosperm explant from B. racemosa. Types of basal media studied including Murashige and Skoog (MS), Lloyd and McCown Woody Plant (WPM) and Gamborg (B5). The endosperm explant of B. racemosa were cultured on different basal MS, WPM and B5 media supplemented with 1.0 mg/L 2,4-D and 1.5 mg/L kinetin. The observation of callus growth and morphological characteristics of callus were done on weekly basis within 4 weeks. After 4 weeks of incubation period, the maximum fresh weight (0.300 ± 0.027g) and dry weight (0.025 ± 0.003g) were recorded from the explants cultured on MS medium followed by WPM and B5 media supplemented with 1.0 mg/L 2,4-D and 1.5 mg/L kinetin. The textures of callus produced from MS were nodular in shape and creamy colour. In conclusion, all the media studied had successfully induced the callus growth of B. racemosa with the present of 1.0 mg/L 2,4-D and 1.5 mg/L kinetin. Keywords: Barringtonia racemosa L, callus, Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium, Lloyd and McCown Wood Plant (WPM) medium, Gamborg (B5) me- dium. 1. Introduction People had been used various materials from nature as beneficial sources to cure their ailment and maintain a good health. One of the most usable sources from nature are plant, and as a result, large amount of modern drugs had been isolated and processed from various types of plant. These types of plant that contributes to medicinal properties is known as medicinal plant. These me- dicinal plant have the abilities to help in curing certain diseases due to their pharmaceutically significant contents of bioactive compounds. The compounds are isolated from plant’s secondary metabolites. It is estimated about 50,000 plant species from Asian medicines are used as traditional medicines [1]. Besides providing advantages in curing diseases, these medicinal plants also contrib- uted in productions of foods, perfumes and flavonoids which mak- ing them growing in popularity across the globe. Barringtonia racemosa (L.) is a type of woody plant that pos- sesses many benefits for maintaining human health such as lower- ing the blood pressure whereas and to treat the chicken pox [2]. Besides that, this plant also contains high phenolic content with the presence of diterpines, triterpenoids, steroids and saponins thus, can enhance the antioxidant activities [3]. A part from that, this species also had been proven to potentially use as a plant- derived anti-gouty arthritis remedy because of its anti- inflammatory activities [4]. Pharmacological activities of this species including antibacterial, anti-tumor, anti-nociceptive, anti- oxidant, anti-inflammatory, alpha-glucosidase inhibitor, anti- fungal, anti-tuberculosis, anti-arthritic and anti-diarrhoeal towards different parts of Barringtonia racemosa species were proven based on the previous study [5]. The induction of callus through plant tissue culture is one of the techniques in plant biotechnology which had been introduced to sustain the distributions and productions of this species. This technique is useful as it enables the whole plant body to be gener- ated through the massive growth of cells which known as callus. Classification of callus could be made based on their microscopic characteristics. For instance, the formation of friable callus group can be used to establish the cell suspension cultures to study the bioactive compound. Besides that, the optimum callus induction can be obtained by supervising certain factors such as the concen- tration of plant growth regulator, types of basal media and incuba- tion temperature which may influence the induction potential and morphology of the callus. In this study, Barringtonia racemosa (L.) was selected for callus induction procedure on different types of basal media (MS, WPM and B5) supplemented with plant growth regulators. The growth and morphological characteristics of the callus were identified in this study. 2. Methodology 2.1 Plant materials Plant materials used in this study were the endosperms of early mature fruits of Barringtonia racemosa (L.) that had been taken from Universiti Putra Malaysia campus. The voucher specimen (SK 3191/17) of the sample was placed in the Herbarium, De- partment of Biology, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang, Selangor. The early matured fruits that were selected for this study were in big size (6-8 cm) of fruits with soft texture of flesh and pale yellow seeds.