Micropropagation strategies and epigenetic variation for production and genetic enhancement of small fruit crops

Small fruit crops are a nutrient powerhouse for health-promoting nutritious food rich in antioxidants.
They are enjoyed as a delicious food worldwide.
Although substantial progress has been attained in small fruit crop propagation using in vitro techniques, clonal stability can be a problem for propagation at commercial scale.
Clonal fidelity can be checked at morphologically, biochemically and at molecular level.
Micropropgated plants in small fruit crops show enhanced vegetative growth and fruit yield with an elevated antioxidant activity that might be due to epigenetic variation.
The understanding on epigenetics at molecular level will help to overcome the drawbacks of in vitro culture and maintain the clonal fidelity in micropropagules.
The talk will provide an extensive study of various features of small fruit micropropagation, phenotypic deviation in tissue culture plants and the epigenetic consequences on these variants along with the function of epigenetic variation due to DNA methylation, to cover the prevailing gap in the literature.

V Balkan Symposium on Fruit Growing

S.C. Debnath

in vitro culture, somaclonal variation, shoot regeneration, somatic embryogenesis, DNA-methylation, antioxidants

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2026.1449.3