The present study deals with the establishment and characterization of Bergenia pacumbis callus cultures and the identification of endophytes isolated from this plant. The findings gained from this work will serve as basics for future investigations into the impact of endophytes as biotic elicitors of the biosynthesis of plant secondary metabolites in cell cultures of B. pacumbis, with special focus on arbutin and bergenin. The first step was to establish callus cultures using explants from

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... es of B. pacumbis specimen. Two different basal nutrient media supplemented with various concentrations of auxins and cytokinins were screened for optimal callus growth. Callus cultures were propagated for several months to grow sufficient cell mass. The best results were achieved using MS medium with 10 µM of 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) and 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) each. Subsequently, samples of callus lines were lyophilised, extracted and analysed with High-Performance-Liquid-Chromatography (HPLC) to determine their arbutin and bergenin contents. The results were opposing expectations based on what was found in extracts of Bergenia leaves. Callus cells contained much more bergenin than arbutin. Another part of the work was to amplify and sequence of the 16S rDNA extracted from endophyte strains previously isolated from different organs of B. pacumbis plants. Sequences were referenced to http://www.straininfo.net and http://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov databases and 47 isolates could be identified successfully. These results could aid future research on whether endophytic extracts could act as biotic elicitors to enhance the production rate of arbutin and bergenin in suspension cultures of B. pacumbis.