The Effect of Slow-grown in Vitro Storage Under Different Light Spectra on Banana Plantlets Cv. Prata Catarina (AAB).

Maintaining updated in vitro plant subcultures is essential for commercial micropropagation and tissue culture research. In unusual situations, the subcultures can be delay and the slow-growth in vitro storage technic could be applied to reduce the loss of plant material. The present study aimed to evaluate the slow-growth in vitro storage of banana plantlets (‘Prata Catarina’; group AAB) under different light spectra. Shoot cultures in MS medium without plant growth regulators were maintained under blue (B), red (R), red plus blue (R2B), and white (CW) light spectra (25°C ± 2°C; 50 µmol m -2 s -1 ) for up to 140 days. The plantlets maintained under the R, CW, and R2B spectra did not survive after 140 days of in vitro slow-growth storage. The plantlets maintained under the B spectrum survived after 140 days of in vitro slow-growth storage and showed little browning.

Cryopreservation of Woody Crops: The Avocado Case

Recent development and implementation of crop cryopreservation protocols has increased the capacity to maintain recalcitrant seeded germplasm collections via cryopreserved in vitro material. To preserve the greatest possible plant genetic resources globally for future food security and breeding programs, it is essential to integrate in situ and ex situ conservation methods into a cohesive conservation plan. In vitro storage using tissue culture and cryopreservation techniques offers promising complementary tools that can be used to promote this approach. These techniques can be employed for crops difficult or impossible to maintain in seed banks for long-term conservation. This includes woody perennial plants, recalcitrant seed crops or crops with no seeds at all and vegetatively or clonally propagated crops where seeds are not true-to-type. Many of the world’s most important crops for food, nutrition and livelihoods, are vegetatively propagated or have recalcitrant seeds. This review will look at ex situ conservation, namely field repositories and in vitro storage for some of these economically important crops, focusing on conservation strategies for avocado. To date, cultivar-specific multiplication protocols have been established for maintaining multiple avocado cultivars in tissue culture. Cryopreservation of avocado somatic embryos and somatic embryogenesis have been successful. In addition, a shoot-tip cryopreservation protocol has been developed for cryo-storage and regeneration of true-to-type clonal avocado plants.

Modelling of Red Blood Cell Morphological and Deformability Changes during In-Vitro Storage

Storage lesion is a critical issue facing transfusion treatments, and it adversely affects the quality and viability of stored red blood cells (RBCs). RBC deformability is a key indicator of cell health. Deformability measurements of each RBC unit are a key challenge in transfusion medicine research and clinical haematology. In this paper, a numerical study, inspired from the previous research for RBC deformability and morphology predictions, is conducted for the first time, to investigate the deformability and morphology characteristics of RBCs undergoing storage lesion. This study investigates the evolution of the cell shape factor, elongation index and membrane spicule details, where applicable, of discocyte, echinocyte I, echinocyte II, echinocyte III and sphero-echinocyte morphologies during 42 days of in-vitro storage at 4 °C in saline-adenine-glucose-mannitol (SAGM). Computer simulations were performed to investigate the influence of storage lesion-induced membrane structural defects on cell deformability and its recoverability during optical tweezers stretching deformations. The predicted morphology and deformability indicate decreasing quality and viability of stored RBCs undergoing storage lesion. The loss of membrane structural integrity due to the storage lesion further degrades the cell deformability and recoverability during mechanical deformations. This numerical approach provides a potential framework to study the RBC deformation characteristics under varying pathophysiological conditions for better diagnostics and treatments.