SCIENTIA HORTICULTURAE, cilt.272, 2020 (SCI-Expanded)
More efficient haploidy protocols have the power to speed up breeding studies. We aimed to increase microspore-derived embryo and in vitro plantlet yields in eggplant anther cultures. To achieve this, a comprehensive optimization study was carried out on the commonly used two-step DDV (Dumas de Vaulx et al., 1982) eggplant anther culture system. For optimizations of both induction and differentiation culture media, the effects of carbohydrate sources (maltose and sucrose) were investigated alone or in combination with two kinds of additives consisting of silver nitrate (AgNO3) and activated charcoal (AC). They were done in the presence of macro-micro salts, vitamins and PGRs of original DDV protocol. During the optimizations, we also compared the effects of genotype, the growth season of donor plants, anther culture type, and culture media, on embryo and in vitro plantlet yields. Regarding culture media, single effect of maltose use was considerable only at the highest concentration. The effects of maltose + AgNO3 combinations were not noteworthy while the effect of maltose + AC combination was negative. However, triple use of maltose (90 g/L) + AgNO3 (10 mg/L) + AC (1 g/L) had a remarkably positive synergistic effect depending on the genotype, season, and concentrations of optimization chemicals. We observed a triple synergistic effect of this aSC24-encoded modified induction medium on longer viability of anthers, embryo quality, direct embryogenesis, faster regeneration and increased embryo and in vitro plantlet yields. Through this extremely efficient modified induction medium, we achieved 3.9 times more embryo yields than the original DDV medium in two genotypes. The highest embryo and in vitro plantlet yields (320 embryos and 200 plantlets/100 anthers) were obtained from 'A117' eggplant anthers cultured in solid aSC24 + DDV-R combined cultures in the autumn season. In addition, as far as we know, embryos (up to 42 embryos/100 anthers) were produced for the first time in a liquid anther culture in eggplant.