Darklight Posted October 13, 2011 I've been working on the micropropagation of a couple of Euphorbiaceae species- yes I know it's a large family and extreeemely diverse:) One of them is a plain Euphorbia, another is a distant relation. Both species are in maintenance culture growing slowly without too obvious a decline but no enthusiastic growth After throwing a whole pile of stuff at them I've noticed that they don't respond particularly enthusiastically to *anything* I add to any of the basic media, changes in light cycle, temperature or spectrum etc. I have been trying to push them in one of two directions- either leaf enlargement , elongation and rootset, or axillary proliferation, can't get statistically valid results anywhere. Even high levels of phytohormones aren't making any discernible differences- no basal thickening, callusing, rootset or even leaf enlargement with 8mg/L IAA. Freshly dispensed IAA. Plants just sit there and look at me I've also tried several published media for Poinsettia spp with the same results The only thing I have conclusively established is that neither of them like 2-4D. Whatever callus generates is sloppy and goes brown and dies rapidly From the quick read I've just done I realise Euphorbia spp are candidates for having Crassulacean Acid Metabolism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crassulacean_acid_metabolism and thus probably have some odd pathways I'm not used to working with. Have done some successful work with cactii spp using only hormone combinations but maybe the Euphorbiaceae are different somehow The other Euphorbiaceae in culture is little studied, not a lot of data on it's biology Here is my question for all you botanists/phytochemists- what sort of pharmacologically weird things are Euphorbiaceae prone to and what sort of pathways could these use? I may be able to exploit the answers to my advantage Even if not I bet I learn some cool stuff Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
woof woof woof Posted October 14, 2011 lonely at the top isnt it? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Darklight Posted October 14, 2011 I could have sworn I heard some brains churning it over. Occidentalis? Torsten? Auxin? Thel? Alchemica? Anyone? echo...echo..echo... Hmmm. maybe I should have posted this in the Pharm and Chem forum Wondering if using different carbon sources such as maltose or dextrose would slot into a theory of possible CAM photosynthesis. But so far all the literature on Euphorbiaceae is still based around a fairly standard formula of macro + micro salts + hormones Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
