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Title: Combining thermotherapy with cryotherapy for efficient eradication of Apple stem grooving virus from infected in vitro-cultured apple shoots

Author
item LEI, ZHAO - Northwest Agriculture And Forestry University
item WANG, MINRUI - Northwest Agriculture And Forestry University
item CUI, ZHENHUA - Northwest Agriculture And Forestry University
item CHEN, LONG - Northwest Agriculture And Forestry University
item Volk, Gayle
item WANG, QIAO-CHUN - Northwest Agriculture And Forestry University

Submitted to: Plant Disease
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/23/2018
Publication Date: 8/1/2018
Citation: Lei, Z., Wang, M., Cui, Z., Chen, L., Volk, G.M., Wang, Q. 2018. Combining thermotherapy with cryotherapy for efficient eradication of Apple stem grooving virus from infected in vitro-cultured apple shoots. Plant Disease. 102: 1574-1580.

Interpretive Summary: Cryopreservation is a technique used to conserve collections of vegetatively propagated genebank collections at a secondary location. This manuscript compares the recovery of apple shoot tips infected with apple stem grooving virus (ASGV) to those that were not infected after cryopreservation. Infected shoot tips exhibited abnormal shoot regrowth compared to those that did not harbor the ASGV. This work demonstrated that the disease status of plant materials may affect the effectiveness of the cryopreservation procedure and suggests that pathogen-free plant materials are preferable for use in shoot tip cryopreservation conservation efforts.

Technical Abstract: Almost all of the literature reporting on the cryopreservation of shoot tips does not specify the sanitary status of the stock material from which shoot tips were taken. The effect of the presence of viruses in plant tissues on the recovery of shoot tips after cryopreservation has not been previously assessed. The present study investigated the effects of Apple stem grooving virus (ASGV) infection on the recovery of cryopreserved shoot tips of ‘Gala’ apple. Results showed that although virus infection did not affect the level of survival and total shoot regrowth of cryopreserved shoot tips, it did cause abnormal shoot regrowth. ASGV infection affected shoot proliferation, caused cell membrane damage, changed the physiological metabolism and altered levels of endogenous IAA, ZR and ABA in the stock shoots, and the altered levels of IAA and ZR that occur in virus infected tissues may be responsible for the observed abnormal shoot regrowth. Results reported in the present study may provide a possible explanation as to why recovery of cryopreserved shoot tips varies from laboratory to laboratory using the same cryoprotocol for the same genotypes. This is the first report on the influence of virus infection on plant cryopreservation and results reported here emphasize the need for using healthy stock cultures for cryopreservation.