Abstract
Vasconcellea quercifolia A. St.-Hil. (Caricaceae) is a tropical fruit species native to Brazil, with a great importance in plant breeding programs. The V. quercifolia has a resistance to the main diseases of Caricaceae, Papaya Ringspot Virus (PRSV). Considering its potential, cryopreservation becomes a tool for the conservation of this species. The objective of this paper was to study the cryopreservation of V. quercifolia zygotic embryos through dehydration in silica gel. Excised zygotic embryos were dehydrated in silica at 0, 20, 40, 80 and 100 minutes and then inoculated in MS medium. The percentage of germinated and recovered embryos, and growth analysis were evaluated, besides water content. Subsequently, they were acclimatized in a growth room with temperature controlled. For cryopreservation, the embryos were excised and dehydrated in silica for 0, 20, 40 and 60 minutes, immersed in Liquid Nitrogen (LN) for 1 hour, thawed in Recovery Solution (RS) and inoculated in MS medium. After 30 days, the percentage of germinated and recovered embryos was evaluated. The silica gel promotes a fast dehydrate of embryos. The results showed that embryo dehydration affected seedling development, and dehydration for over 20 minutes showed a reduction in all evaluated parameters. The plantlets regenerated from embryos dehydrate survive the acclimatization. It was possible to cryopreserve the V. quercifolia zygotic embryos when the dehydration time of 20 minutes by silica gel was used.
Highlights
After 20 minutes of dehydration, the zygotic embryos showed a drastic fall to values close to 40% water, showing not statistical significance from the other dehydration times (Fig. 1)
Similar results have been reported for Haemanthus montanus (Sershen et al, 2011), Cocos nucifera L. (Sisunandar et al, 2010), Byrsonima intermedia (Silva et al, 2014), Physalis angulata
Even though there was no deep decrease in water content after 20 min of dehydration, with the increase in dehydration time, it was verified a decrease in embryo germination and recovery, opposite from observed in control
Summary
St.-Hil. is a native Brazilian species, belonging to the family Caricaceae This tropical species presents small fruits with smooth skin and firm pulp, with potential use in the food and pharmaceutical industry (Alamery and Drew, 2014; Faccio et al, 2015). V. quercifolia has a great importance for its resistance to the Papaya Ringspot Virus (PRSV), one of the main diseases of Caricaceae. This makes it a potential species for use in breeding programs of Caricaceae species, as well as a rootstock (Caetano et al, 2008; Alamery and Drew, 2014; Chaves-Bedoya and Ortiz-Rojas, 2015; KanchanaUdomkan, et al, 2016)
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