Short-Term Storability of Alginate-Encapsulated Persian Violet Microshoots for Germplasm Exchange

Abstract

Microshoots have been widely used for micropropagation. It may be necessary to store microshoots for a short period of time, for example in germplasm exchange needing transport to other research groups. Here, we investigated the short-term storability of alginate-encapsulated Persian violet (Exacum affine Balf. f. ex Regel) microshoots at 4 °C and 25 °C. After storage, the encapsulated microshoots were sown on basal Murashige and Skoog medium for germination and viability determination using tetrazolium chloride staining. The results showed that one or five microshoots encapsulated with a single alginate layer could be stored at 4 °C for up to 30 days, while the percentages of germination and viability of the microshoots encapsulated with two layers of alginate were greatly reduced upon storage. This is the first report on the storability of alginate-encapsulated multiple microshoots, which could be a more efficient way to encapsulate microshoots used for short-term cold storage.

In Vitro Medium-Term Storage of Banana Cultivar ‘Barangan’ Using Alginate-Encapsulation Technique

“…In vitro preservation of genetic resources can be carried out through (1) development of a tissue bank, (2) cryopreservation, (3) shoot culture and multiplication, and (4) in vitro culture for minimal plant growth (slow growth culture), and root culture of generative reproducing plants for longterm storage (Panis 2009;Anis and Ahmad, 2016;Chauchan et al 2019). In vitro technology is currently necessary for plant diversity maintenance strategies, especially for species propagated vegetatively (Keller et al 2006;Khalid and Tan 2017;Benelli et al 2022;Phanomchai et al 2022). According to Benson et al (2011), from 28,000 accessions of plants propagated vegetatively, such as bananas, cassava, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other tubers, 85% of them were collected in vitro with minimal growth and 10% with cryopreservation.…”

“…Encapsulation technology is an exciting and rapidly developing field of biotechnology research (Sharma et al 2012a;Phanomchai et al 2022). Encapsulated explants can be performed on somatic embryos, shoots, or other meristematic tissues, thereby minimizing the cost of transporting plant material for commercialization and final delivery (Rai et al 2009;Hassanein et al 2011;Sharma et al 2012b;Rihan et al 2017;Phanomchai et al 2022). In addition, it can be stored for a long time without losing viability (Anis and Ahmad 2016), reducing labor and shortening the subculture time (Benelli et al 2022).…”

“…The technique of encapsulation has been successfully carried out on Persian violet (Phanomchai et al (2022), Begonia (Sakhanokho et al 2013), and different cultivars of banana such as banana cv. 'Grande Naine' (Hamza 2013), M. balbisiana cv.…”

“…In vitro storage with minimal growth by encapsulation using sodium alginate in Murashige and Skoogs Medium is necessary to reduce the constraints of banana preservation. Sodium alginate and calcium chloride are the best combinations for encapsulation explants because these ions are non-destructive, inexpensive, easy to use, and result in the high conversion of encapsulated embryos to plants (Sharma et al 2012a;Reyes et al 2017;Phanomchai et al 2022). It is also cost-effective for clonal propagation systems (Ahmad et al 2012).…”

Treatment of Chrysanthemum Synthetic Seeds by Air SDBD Plasma

“…The term ‘synseeds’ was described by Murashige in 1977 [ 3 ] as ‘an encapsulated single somatic embryo’, but later, the definition of artificial seeds was extended to any artificially coated micropropagules that have capability to be sown as a seed and converted into a plant [ 4 , 5 ]. There is a growing trend in applications of synseed technology for medium- and long-term storage of plant material under aseptic conditions [ 6 , 7 ] or as an advanced procedure of cryopreservation by encapsulation–dehydration and encapsulation–vitrification method [ 8 , 9 ]. Synseed technology represents an efficient alternative technique for propagation and germplasm conservation of valuable forest, medicinal and vegetable plant species that reproduce mainly vegetatively or have a problem in seed propagation, i.e., plants that produce non-viable seeds or seedless plants [ 10 ].…”