¹Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Cawangan Melaka, Kampus Jasin 77300 Merlimau, Melaka, Malaysia

²Agricultural Biotechnology Research Group (RG), Faculty of Plantation and Agrotechnology, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

³Centre of Biotechnology for Agriculture Research, Biotechnology and Bioproduct Research Cluster, Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Email: azma_yusuf@uitm.edu.my

Pharmacological worth flavonoid compounds, found in Boesenbergia rotunda (finger root) have caused massive interests among researchers which led to the applications of plant tissue culture technology. The flavonoids of B. rotunda are known to display anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-virus, anti-HIV and anti-dengue activities. This present study has been conducted to investigate the effects of precursor feeding of phenylalanine on the production of selected flavonoids; cardamonin, pinostrobin and panduratin A in in vitro adventitious root cultures of B. rotunda. The growth and flavonoids production of the in vitro adventitious roots did response positively when being cultured in liquid half strength MS medium + 0.5 mg/L NAA fed with phenylalanine in different concentrations (0, 10, 20, 40 and 60 mM/L) for five weeks. Cardamonin, pinostrobin and panduratin A were significantly enhanced in culture medium fed with 20 mM/L phenylalanine with 3.17 ± 0.00 mg/g, 1.67 ± 0.00 mg/g and 1.80 ± 0.0 mg/g respectively. From these results, the selected flavonoids were found to be 4.7 folds higher for pinostrobin, 11.1 folds higher for cardamonin and 20 folds higher for panduratin A compared to the flavonoids produced in control root samples. The success of this study is beneficial for potential future works to guarantee maximum production of desired secondary metabolites in B. rotunda species.