New Tools to Facilitate In Vitro Work with Plants
Valerie Pence, Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife, Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Cincinnati, OH
A group of online tools has been developed and more are in process to help facilitate in vitro work with plants. These can be found on the Exceptional Plant Conservation Network website (http://cincinnatizoo.org/epcn) which is hosted by the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden.
Exceptional plants are those that can’t be conserved in conventional seedbanks. Threatened exceptional species may require cryobanking of tissues other than seeds, including in vitro shoot tips or somatic embryos. Developing protocols for generating in vitro tissues of threatened exceptional species, which may be totally new to tissue culture, can be a resource- and labor-intensive process. The goal of the online tools is to help facilitate protocol development, but also to eventually provide large datasets that can be analyzed in various ways to better understand the factors that determine successful protocol development. The tools and resources include:
- Media Comparison Tool. Choose from a variety of media and the tool will generate comparative graphs of the inorganic components based on the formula or ions of both macro- and micro-nutrients.
- Hormone Calculator. Convert between micromolar and mg/L for a wide variety of plant growth regulators.
- Comparative In Vitro Database. This is a continually growing aggregation of information on the salts and hormones that have been used in plant in vitro protocols for a wide variety of taxa. Currently about 400 species are included, representing 1500 protocols, but this is only a small fraction of the number targeted and more will continue to be added. There is also an online form where others can submit information from their own work.
- Botanic Gardens Micropropagation News. (nearing launch). BGMN was a publication from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the 1990s. It is now on the Kew Archives, but we will also be offering it in a searchable form.
- Comparative Cryopreservation Database (in development). Like the Comparative In Vitro Database, this will aggregate information, in this case on protocols used for cryopreserving various plant taxa.
- List of Exceptional Plants. This is a growing list of which plant species that are considered exceptional and the reasons for their exceptionality.
These tools have been developed as part of grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Even though our IMLS grant has recently been canceled, we will continue to host and add to these tools. We hope they can be of use for conservation, as well as for the wider community of researchers working with in vitro plant systems. Questions, comments, or suggestions for these or more tools can be sent to epcn@cincinnatizoo.org. We welcome your input!
Submitted by Valerie Pence
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