Plant regeneration from an endangered valuable cork oak tree by somatic embryogenesis

• Inmaculada Hernández Sánchez ^[1] ; Cristina Celestino ^[1] ; Dolores López-Vela ^[1] ; Elena Carneros ^[1] ; Jesús Jiménez García ^[1] ; Jesús Alegre ^[1] ; Jesús Gil ^[2] ; Mariano Toribio ^[1]
  1. [1] Instituto Madrileño de Investigación y Desarrollo Rural, Agrario y Alimentario

     Instituto Madrileño de Investigación y Desarrollo Rural, Agrario y Alimentario

     Madrid, España

     
  2. [2] Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

     Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

     Madrid, España

     
• Localización: Suberwood: new challenges for the integration of cork oak forests and products / Javier Vázquez Piqué (ed. lit.), Helena Pereira (ed. lit.), María Arantzazu González Pérez (ed. lit.), 2008, ISBN 978-84-96826-47-2, págs. 205-211
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Among the several applications of in vitro tissue culture techniques, the conservation of plant germplasm is one of the most widely used.

    The cork oak is one of the principal tree species in the Western Mediterranean region. Within this area, the Balearic Islands are considered to be a glacial refuge, and therefore a reservoir of genetic resources. A singular tree has been found in the small Minorca Island population. The haplotype of this tree is of Tyrrhenian origin, showing a past link between Minorca and Sardinia. Moreover, this tree do not bear a deletion within an ITS from ribosomic nuclear DNA, which is fairly common in many populations of this species, and indicates that it may be the descendant of a very ancient population. This tree is currently in a precarious condition, and it has not produced acorns in the last years. Hence there is a clear need of vegetative propagation to conserve this genotype. We have previously developed methods to clone adult cork oak trees by somatic embryogenesis, and therefore the aim of the present work was to clone this singular tree. Three branches from the crown were collected in November 2004, and methods previously described were carried out. By February 2005 somatic embryogenesis was obtained from leaves of the tree with percentages of induction ranging from 17 to 54 % depending on the branch, which may show a novel source of variation that requires further study. Spontaneously matured somatic em-bryos germinated at 46 % in average, and the first somatic seedlings from the Alfavaret's cork oak tree were obtained. Therefore, this study shows one of the most relevant applications of somatic embryogenesis: the plant regeneration of valuable genotypes for the in situ and ex situ conservation of forest genetic resources.