Figure 4. The effect of different concentrations of cadmium chloride on growth characteristics (a) and withanolides production (b) in cell suspension culture of W. somnifera in shake-flask culture at 4 h exposure time.

Five hundred milligram of fresh mass of friable callus was cultured in 30/l picloram, 0.5 mg/l KN, 200 mg/l L-glutamine and 5% sucrose and kept on gyratory shaker at 120 rpm under total darkness. The cultures were harvested on 28^th day. Data represents mean±standard error of three replicates; each experiment was repeated thrice.