Cytological and molecular evaluation of strawberry plants recovered from in vitro conservation by slow-growth

Abstract

SummaryShoot tips of strawberry (Fragaria vesca F. ananassa) cultivar ‘Heilongjiang No.1’ were successfully preserved in vitro using a slow-growth culture method. All shoot tips survived 1 year of storage and showed an increase of 1.56 ± 0.08 cm in shoot length. In addition, eight single-bud-derived sibling lines were established for genetic analysis. Although cytological examination detected chromosomal variations in plants recovered from slow-growth, their ploidy level was similar to the control. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis with 16 primer combinations did not detected any change in AFLP patterns between controls and strawberry plants recovered from slow-growth culture. However, methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP) analyses indicated that slow-growth storage induced changes in DNA methylation and DNA de-methylation patterns, while no de novo methylation was found.