Role of salicyclic acid on conifer somatic embryogenesis

Abstract

This review paper highlights about the role of salicyclic acid on somatic embryogenesis and also recent updates on cloning mature trees of  conifers using salicyclic acid were discussed. Salicyclic acid (SA) is a mobile molecule, which is capable of acting as a cell signal that senses, amplifies, and transmit information from a cell and might help in programming  towards embryogenesis during cloning. Very recently incorporation of 1.0 mg-1 SA in the DCR induction medium was found to be optimum for all  the genotypes of P. roxburghii in terms of increasing the percentage of somatic embryogenesis compared against control. Therefore, salicyclic acid can be used as growth regulator in conifer somatic embryogenesis and its use might help to solve the low initiation frequencies of many other recalcitrant pines. However, the mechanism of salicylate-induced  differentiation in plants is not known, although salicylate is a signal molecule implicated in eliciting many physiological functions in plants.