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Continuous biosynthesis of abscisic acid (ABA) may be required for maintaining dormancy of isolated embryos and intact seeds of Euonymus alatus

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Abstract

Euonymus alatus (Thunb.) Sieb. is a popular landscape plant in the United States due to its brilliant red fall foliage. It is also an important ornamental plant in many other areas of the world such as China, Japan and Europe. However, E. alatus is considered as a highly invasive plant species in the US. Mutation breeding can be used to create sterile, non-invasive cultivars. Seeds are the most commonly used explants for mutagen treatments, but E. alatus mature seeds possess prolonged dormancy and only a low percentage of them germinate even after 18 months of cold stratification. Here we report an immature embryo culture method for E. alatus ‘Compactus’ to circumvent the seed dormancy problem. Also, we have found that activated charcoal, gibberellic acid (GA3) and 6-benzyladenine (BA) can reduce the dormancy of isolated embryos, which suggests that abscisic acid (ABA) might play a role in controlling seed dormancy. We have further demonstrated that exogenous ABA enhances dormancy of isolated E. alatus embryos while fluridone, an inhibitor for ABA biosynthesis, can effectively break their dormancy. These results, particularly the effect of fluridone, suggest that continuous ABA biosynthesis plays an important role in controlling the dormancy of E. alatus seeds.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank New England Invasive Plant Center, USDA NIFA, UConn College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station for their financial support to The Li Laboratory for this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA

    Chandra Thammina, Mingyang He, Hao Yu, Ying Gai, Kaishuang Cao, Litang Lu, Richard McAvoy, Donna Ellis & Yi Li

  2. College of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan, 430062, China

    Yongqin Chen

  3. Guizhou Key Laboratory of Agricultural Bioengineering, Guizhou University, Guiyang, 550025, China

    Degang Zhao

  4. College of Horticulture, Northwest Sci-Tech University of Agriculture and Forestry, Yangling, 712100, China

    Yuejin Wang

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  1. Chandra Thammina
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  4. Yongqin Chen
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Correspondence to Yi Li.

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Chandra Thammina and Mingyang He have contributed equally and are considered co-first authors.

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Thammina, C., He, M., Yu, H. et al. Continuous biosynthesis of abscisic acid (ABA) may be required for maintaining dormancy of isolated embryos and intact seeds of Euonymus alatus . Plant Cell Tiss Organ Cult 108, 493–500 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-011-0063-z

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