Abiotic stress resposes in apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) tissue cultures

Abstract

Abiotic stress factors, primarily those which disturb plant water balance, cause extensive crop losses. With regard to sessile lifestyle, many mechanisms how to cope with these unfavourable conditions were developed during evolution of plants. As common impact of many of these stresses like drought, salinity or low temperatures is of osmotic nature, the osmotic adjustment represents important part of plant stress response. Mostly, this component of stress reaction is provided by organic compounds, which are referred to as compatible solutes, including polyhydroxyl compounds (sucrose, sugar alcohols, cyclitols, and oligosacharides) and nitrogen-containing compounds (mainly proline). The effect of these solutes is not only osmotic, but also osmoprotective as they are able to preserve integrity of membranes and macromolecules by mimicking their water envelope. The compatible solutes also contribute to quenching of reactive oxygen species overproduced under these stress conditions. This study is focused on apple (Malus domestica) producing, beside sucrose, sugar alcohol sorbitol as primary photosynthetic product and transporting these carbohydrates along with raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFO) for a long distance. In vitro tissue cultures derived from leaves of two apple cultivars differing in..