Faculty of Science Research Seminar: Elicitors Effect on in vitro Cultures of Sauropus Androgynus

The Faculty of Science will host a weekly research seminar on Wednesday, February 22nd at 4:00pm. The seminar will be presented by Wee Sing Ling from the School of Biosciences. The title of the talk is Elicitors Effect on in vitro Cultures of Sauropus Androgynus (sweet shoot) for Sustainable Metabolite Production and Antioxidant Capacity Improvement, abstract below.

Abstract:

Sauropus androgynus (sweet shoot) is an underutilized tropical vegetable classified by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) due to its high nutritive value, medicinal properties and economic significance. Sweet shoot is cultivated intensively using stem cuttings in Southeast Asia and is notable for its high palatability. There is limited potential for the conventional propagation of sweet shoot through seeds and stem cuttings, hence, in vitro plant regeneration protocols from various developmental pathways need to be developed in order to overcome the demerits of conventional propagation and to ensure sustainable production of sweet shoot with desirable traits. Relatively limited approaches have been made for in vitro propagation of sweet shoot, owing to problems such as exudation of phenolics from explants, vitrification and somaclonal variation. The current study focuses on the optimization of culture environments, cultivation system, concentration and combination of plant growth regulators on adventitious shoot, callus and somatic embryo regeneration. Micropropagation using nodal stem segments with an axillary bud and the understanding of specific culture requirements at different stages have been adequately addressed in this paper. New challenges for the refinements of protocols for more effective shoot multiplication using liquid media have gained importance recently, due to their advantages over solid medium systems. In sweet shoot, this paper encouraged rapid regeneration and multiplication through organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis using leaf explants. The effects of culture environment on callus induction have been examined for a better understanding of callus performance and callus morphology. This research work also describes the current and developing methods for in vitro root induction and acclimatization of micropropagated plantlets, since both stages are crucial for successful micropropagation protocols.  All the established cultures will be served as a plant material for the next studies on elicitation, metabolite production and antioxidant capacity improvement.

The seminar is open to all interested students, faculty and staff. We look forward to seeing you there.