Environmental conditions at the initial stages of Pinus radiata somatic embryogenesis affect the production of somatic embryos

Short communication: The effect of changing temperature and agar concentration at proliferation stage in the final success of Aleppo pine somatic embryogenesis

“…However, these differences were only observed between EMs proliferated at 23ºC in a culture medium containing 3.5 g/L agar (860 somatic embryos per gram of EM) and those proliferated at 28ºC with 3.5 g/L agar (1212 somatic embryos per gram of EM). Our results are in agreement with results obtained by Kvaalen & Johnsen (2008) in Picea abies, and opposite to findings reported by García-Mendiguren et al (2016) in P. radiata where they did not find differences among proliferation treatments for somatic embryo production. Furthermore, different environmental conditions at initiation stage of P. halepensis SE, did not lead to significant differences in the number of somatic embryos obtained (Pereira et al, 2016).…”

“…However, few studies have focused on the impact of temperature (Kvaalen & Johnsen, 2008), and the effect of different concentrations of agar in the culture medium has been studied mostly at maturation stage (Teyssier et al, 2011;Morel et al, 2014). In this sense, in our laboratory García-Mendiguren et al (2016) described in Pinus radiata (D. Don) that different temperatures and water availability conditions at initiation affected subsequent phases of SE; however, this effect on subsequent phases of the process disappeared when different environmental conditions were applied at proliferation. Then, Pereira et al (2016) found out that different environmental conditions at initiation did not influence maturation and germination phases in P. halepensis.…”

Different environmental conditions at initiation of radiata pine somatic embryogenesis determine the protein profile of somatic embryos

“…Therefore, proteomics is a very useful tool for studying stress tolerance, allowing the identification and quantification of stress-tolerance associated proteins (Pinheiro et al 2014); it opens the possibility to use protein markers in breeding programs for improving selection. In a previous study carried out in Pinus radiata (García-Mendiguren et al 2015) and Pinus halepensis (Pereira et al 2016), we observed that different environmental conditions (temperature and water availability) at initial stages of SE led to different successat initiation stage.…”

“…According to the initiation percentages, explants cultured at 18 and 23°C (Figure 2A) led to high initiation percentages (17-13%, respectively; data from García-Mendiguren et al 2015), in contrast to those cultured at 28°C (Figure 2B), which showed lower rates of initiation success (4%). When gellan gum was set at 4 g/l the highest initiation percentage was obtained (16%), compared to explants initiated at either 2 or 3 g/l which showed initiation values of 9% (García-Mendiguren et al 2015).…”

“…All cultures were kept in darkness at 23°C. In order to analyse the results, initiation percentages were taken from García-Mendiguren et al (2015).…”