Cryopreservation of Seeds and Embryos of Jatropha curcas L.

Julián Andrés Prada¹, María Elena Aguilar², Ana Abdelnour-Esquivel³, Florent Engelmann⁴

¹Egresado Escuela de Posgrado del CATIE, Cartago, Costa Rica.
²Laboratorio de Biotecnología, Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza (CATIE), Cartago, Costa Rica.
³Centro de Investigación en Biotecnología, Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica (ITCR), Cartago, Costa Rica.
⁴IRD, UMR DIADE, Montpellier, France.

DOI: 10.4236/ajps.2015.61020                

Abstract

Jatropha curcas is a species with a variety of uses. It is grown primarily for oil for biodiesel, but also has agronomic and medicinal applications. Two methods were evaluated for cryopreservation of seeds and zygotic embryos of J. curcas: desiccation followed by rapid immersion of seeds and embryos in liquid nitrogen (LN, -196°C), and vitrification of zygotic embryos. Prior to cryo-preservation, seeds were manually scarified and the moisture content (MC) of seeds and embryos was determined. Explants were disinfected after cryopreservation. Seed germination after LN exposure was 100%. Plantlet development was better in sand substrate than that in vitro. Survival of zygotic embryos after cryopreservation was also 100%, without significant differences between treatments. Optimal development (100%) and plantlet length (51.77 mm) were observed with embryos dried for 60 min to 9.4% MC under laminar flow prior to cryopreservation. Zygotic embryos subjected to the vitrification procedure did not withstand LN exposure. Survival data for non-cryopreserved embryos after each step of the vitrification procedure provided information about embryo tolerance to cryoprotectants.

Keywords

Cryopreservation, Seeds, Embryos, Dehydration, Vitrification, Desiccation

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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