## 1 Introduction  
The valuable properties of medicinal plants have been appreciated for many centuries worldwide, and research on their active compounds is being conducted on an increasingly large scale. _Scutellaria bacialensis_ Georgi (Baikal skullcap) is one of the plants utilized in modern conventional and herbal medicine [1, 2, 3]. The properties of biologically active compounds in this plant have allowed for its wide applications, ranging from treating common colds to addressing significant contemporary issues such as the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and cancer [4]. The origins of its use trace back to Central and East Asia. The Chinese have been using the dried roots of this medicinal plant (_Scutellariae baiaclensis radix_) for over 2000 years in traditional medicine, known as Huang-Qin [5; 6]. It contains biologically active substances, mainly flavonoids [7]. The genus _Scutellaria_ belongs to the family _Lamiaceae_, and according to various sources, it includes approximately 360 species. _S. baiaclensis_ is a perennial herb that reaches heights in a range of 25-60 cm. It forms straight stems covered with small lancoleate leaves and has a small, short rhizome with a taproot with numerous lateral roots. The flowers are blue-violet in color [8]. Its broad pharmacological effects have led to attempts to propagate this species using in vitro tissue culture techniques. Plant tissue culture techniques are widely used for the rapid and efficient propagation of various medicinal plant species [9]. This technique is an alternative method for the clonal multiplication of plants when conventional methods are not effective enough. Micropropagation can provide large numbers of uniform plants, using only a small fragment of the parent plant as the primary explant. They provide invaluable assistance in conventional plant improvement methods, enabling the production of renewable biomass, typically with a high capacity for the biosynthesis of desired compounds [10; 11; 12]. These techniques also contribute to the conservation of endangered and endemic medicinal plant species [13]. So far, research on the in vitro micropropagation of the _Scutellaria_ genus has focused on species, such as _S. orientalis_[14; 15], _S. alpine_[16; 17], _S. araziensis_[18], _S. burbuta_, and _S. racemosa_[19]. They indicate the possibility of regeneration by both indirect and direct organogenesis. For _S. baiaclensis_, efficient regeneration took place from various types of explants, in the medium enriched with kinetin and 1-Naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), NAA and 6-Benzylaminopurine (BAP) [20; 21], and also in the presence of thidiazuron (TDZ) [22; 23]. At the same time, the process of clonal multiplication can generate genetically uniform plants or, through somacional variation, lead to their diversification [24]. Molecular markers based on the DNA sequence are the most commonly used approach to detect the genetic stability/variability of plants grown in vitro [25]. Start codon targeted polymorphism markers are molecular tools used to analyze differences in DNA sequences. The method utilizing SCoT markers involves the amplification of random DNA fragments using short primers (15-16 nucleotides) that flank the translation start codon--ATG. Since their development, SCoT markers have been applied in population genetics and genetic diversity analysis in a wide range of plants, like cereals, legumes, fruit and vegetable crops, medicinal plants, forest trees, ornamental plants, and other economically important plants [26; 27; 28; 29]. This type of marker has been used to analyze the genetic fidelity of tissue culture-raised plants, which is essential before its commercialization, particularly for elite and superior genotypes, where the regenerant is expected to be true to type [24; 30; 31; 32]. Publications strictly on _Scutellaria baiaclensis_, both those relating to the micropropagation technique and the assessment of genetic diversity using genetic markers, are very rare. An effective system for the in vitro propagation of _S.