Embriogenesi somatica in alcune specie rare ed a rischio di estinzione: prospettive e applicazioni

The Botanical Garden of Padua is engaged on developing in vitro methologies for long-term storage of germplasm collections of endangered plants. In vitro culture techniques have been developed for both conservation purposes and production of improved somaclones of medicinal plants. In this work, we describe the somatic embryogenesis of rare and threatened native plants from North Eastern Italy and the production of synthetic seeds via the encapsulation of somatic embryos for biodiversity conservation purposes (cryopreservation). Moreover, we report the somatic embryogenesis from sterile plantlet explants of the high alkaloid content VV27 somaclone of Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don previously obtained by indirect somatic embryogenesis.