Survival and genetic stability of shoot tips of Hedeoma todsenii R.S.Irving after long-term cryostorage

Endangered and rare species for which seed banking is not possible require alternative methods of ex situ conservation for long-term preservation. These methods depend primarily on cryopreservation methods, such as shoot tip cryopreservation, but there are few datasets with information on the long-term survival of shoot tips stored in liquid nitrogen. In this study, survival and genetic stability of shoot tips of the endangered species, Hedeoma todsenii, banked over multiple years were examined. In vitro cultures cryopreserved with both the encapsulation dehydration and the encapsulation vitrification methods showed good average survival after up to 13 yr of storage in liquid nitrogen. The application of droplet vitrification to this species increased survival significantly, with an average of 72%, compared with 24–45% survival obtained with other methods. As measured with microsatellite and sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) markers, the genetic stability of the same genotypes stored over different periods of time typically did not change. However, there was an average of 10.4% band loss between replicate samples that did indicate a potential change in DNA composition. These results demonstrate the use of shoot tip cryopreservation as an effective ex situ conservation tool for this species, but genetic stability of the cryopreserved tissues should be closely monitored.