In Vitro Shoot Culture of Sesuvium portulacastrum: An Important Plant for Phytoremediation

Weihong He,Dan Wang,Xiaofeng Chen,Xiangying Wei,Dingding Cao,Nan Yang,Jianjun Chen

doi:10.3390/agriculture12010047

Weihong He, Dan Wang + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture12010047

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Abstract

Sesuvium portulacastrum L., a member of the family Aizoaceae, is an important coastal halophyte. Due to its adaptability to salinity and heavy metals, S. portulacastrum has now been widely used for the phytoremediation of saline soils and wastewater and the protection of the coast from erosion. The increasing use of this plant requires a large number of propagules. Stem cutting propagation and seed germination cannot meet this demand, and such propagations can initiate and spread diseases. A recent occurrence of Bipolaris sesuvii J.Z. Zhang and Gibbago trianthemae E.G. Simmons in S. portulacastrum resulted in the substantial loss of the plants during the remediation of aquaculture wastewater. Thus, there is an urgent need for establishing efficient methods of propagating disease-free starting materials. In the present study, we evaluated different growth regulators in the induction of axillary shoots from nodal explants cultured on Murashige and Skoog medium and identified that zeatin (ZT) and α-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) was an appropriate combination for inducing high numbers of axillary shoots. The nodal explants were then cultured on MS medium supplemented with different concentrations of ZT and NAA, and the combination of ZT at 1.0 mg L−1 and NAA at 0.3 mg L−1 induced more than 12 axillary shoots per explant. The axillary shoots were excised to produce microcuttings or microshoots, which were rooted on half-strength MS medium supplemented with different concentrations of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) or indole-3-butyric acid (IBA). The results showed that IBA at 0.6 mg L−1 induced 91.7% of the microcuttings to root with root numbers of over 36 per cutting. The rooted plantlets were healthy and true-to-type and grew vigorously in plug trays or plastic containers with a 100% survey rate in a greenhouse. Thus, this established protocol could be used for the rapid propagation of genetically identical and disease-free plants of S. portulacastrum for phytoremediation and the protection of shoreline soils from erosion.

Highlights

Sesuvium portulacastrum L., a member of the family Aizoaceae, is an important halophyte with a chromosome number of 2n = 48
Axillary shoots were induced from the nodes of S. portulacastrum explants cultured on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with different growth regulator combinations (Figure 2)
When the explants were cultured on MS medium containing BA with either indole-3-butyric acid (IBA), indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), or naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), the average number of axillary shoots differed from 3.79 to 5.60, and callus was observed on MS 2-6 and MS 8-9

Summary

Introduction

Sesuvium portulacastrum L., a member of the family Aizoaceae, is an important halophyte with a chromosome number of 2n = 48. It is a perennial creeping succulent herb grown in coastal sandy or saline soils in the subtropical and tropical regions; it is commonly known as sea purslane [1,2,3]. Sea purslane has a thick taproot and many fibrous secondary roots and produces adventitious roots from the node. Simple, and succulent, and stems are creeping or prostrate. Sea purslane plants produce small, star-shaped flowers that are white, pinkish purple, or pendent and subsequent capsule fruit containing about 50 seeds. S. portulacastrum is a fast-growing plant and can quickly cover the ground or grow in water with trailing vines or internodes that overlap to create dense evergreen floating plant clusters

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