Saline stress and cell toxicity evaluation using suspended plant cell cultures ...

• Author(s): Lima-Costa, Maria Emília ; Ferreira, A. L. ; Duarte, Amílcar ; Beltrão, J.
• Date: 2002
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/2787
• Origin: Sapientia - Universidade do Algarve
• Subject(s): Salinity; Citrus; Plant cell suspension culture; Salt tolerance; Bioreactor
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

Crop salt damage consists, usually, of leaf burn and defoliation, and it is associated with accumulation of toxic levels of sodium and/or chloride in leaf cells (Storey and Walker, 1999). The cell and tissue culture are simple biological systems that offer a direct approach to the metabolic changes. The plant cell growth in a controlled environment, as a bioreactor, is a unique tool for cell ion transport studies. Cell suspension culture of citrus cell line was exposed to a medium containing different sodium chloride concentrations (0mM, 42.7mM and 85.5mM). The growth profile of control cells (absence of NaCl) and 85.5mM cells were similar. The lack of inhibition of biomass accumulation, of all tested saline conditions clearly showed that the level of NaCl concentration used was not toxic for the cell metabolism. Also its ability to resist to 85.5mM NaCl can be on evidence that this suspension cel culture might have salt tolerance characteristics.