Silver nitrate (AgNO₃) can induce various expression levels of shoot regulatory regeneration gene via direct organogenesis of Euphorbia pulcherrima ‘Christmas Eve’

The winter-flowering Euphorbia pulcherrima (poinsettia) belongs to the most economically important potted ornamental plants in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, especially during the Christmas season.
Traditional propagation methods show low propagation coefficients and additionally have the disadvantage of transferring various diseases and pathogens including bacterial and fungal contaminations.
The use of plant tissue culture techniques offers many advantages such as season-free, mass-scale, and healthy production in a limited period.
In this respect, the establishment of several biotechnological steps particularly direct/indirect organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis is of utmost importance for successful genetic engineering programs.
We here report on the evaluation of four concentrations of silver nitrate (AgNO₃) (0, 5, 10, 20 mg L^‑1) in Murashige and Skoog (MS) and Driver and Kuniyuki (DKW) culture media for their viability in direct organogenesis from stem segments of Euphorbia pulcherrima ‘Christmas Eve’. All treatments were performed at a stable concentration of 1 mg L^‑1 BAP + 0.1 mg L^‑1 NAA. The highest concentration of silver nitrate (20 mg L^‑1) was able to control internal bacterial infections and to enhance the direct regeneration rate in comparison with the control group.
This was also confirmed by upregulation of the shoot regulatory genes SHOOT MERISTEMLESS (STM) and D-type CYCLIN (CYCD).

V International Symposium on Woody Ornamentals of the Temperate Zone

M.D. Pahnekolayi, V. Gruber Schmidt, T. Sprink, R. Boehm, H. Halbwirth

ornamental plants, In vitro propagation, axillary node, shoot tip, silver compounds

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2025.1434.24