Abstract
Oil palm is used in food, fuel and cosmetic industries. Tissue culture is the best way to propagate oil palm; unfortunately the somatic embryogenesis during tissue culture takes long time. The molecular mechanism of somatic embryogenesis in oil palm remains unknown. Recent research reported that auxin plays an important role in early and post-embryogenic plant. PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR4 (PIF4) regulates levels of auxin and the expression of key auxin biosynthesis genes. Our research aims to characterize oil palm PIF4 gene. Thus, we cloned EgPIF4, analyzed the domain using bioinformatic and examined the expression of EgPIF4 during somatic embryogenesis at different tissue including callus and somatic embryo stages; globular, torpedo, cotyledon, and plantlet stage using real-time PCR method. The result showed that EgPIF4 gene comprised 1,737 bp with 9 exons, which encode 578 amino acid residuals. It contains a conserved domain called basic helix-loop-helix domain. EgPIF4 has high level of expression at somatic embryogenetic stage specifically globular and torpedo stage suggested that EgPIF4 plays an important role during somatic embryogenesis. The future characterization of EgPIF4 function in oil palm will help to understand somatic embryogenesis process and facilitate the improvement of the oil palm tissue culture.
Highlights
Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) belongs to the Arecaceae family
The results showed that EgPIF4 gene located on chromosome 1 in oil palm genome
PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR4 (PIF4) is a transcription factor that was reported to have a role in controlling the level of auxin which is an important hormone during somatic embryogenesis process
Summary
Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) belongs to the Arecaceae family. It is the most important oil crop giving the highest yield per hectare among all oil crops in the world. The plantation area in many countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand is expanding because of the rapid increase in demand for the oil palm product (Aratrakorn et al 2006). Tissue culture process are used to propagate high yielding oil palm to meet the demand. Oil palm tissue culture is composed of callus induction, somatic embryogenesis, maturation stage (shoot and root induction) and the regeneration of viable plantlets (Thuzar et al 2011). The production of oil palm by tissue culture technique takes at least one and a half years to obtain small plantlets
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