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Evidence of pseudogamy in Guggul (Commiphora wightii): a comprehensive investigation based on FACS (fluorescence-activated cell sorting) analysis

  • Reproductive Biology - Short Communication
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Abstract

Guggul [Commiphora wightii (Arnott.) Bhandari] is an important medicinal plant that possesses a wide range of reproductive behavior. Obligate sexual, obligate apomictic, facultative apomictic/sexual plant types are reported earlier with evidences of autonomous endomitotic as well as sexual endosperm formation in this species. Observing the wide variability in reproductive biology of the species, an extensive study has been carried out in 53 female accessions collected from diverse regions of Gujarat and Rajasthan to find out the occurrence of pseudogamy in guggul. The endosperm development pattern and analysis of endosperm ploidy level were done by studying fruit set development under bagged/open-pollinated conditions and checking endosperm ploidy level through flow cytometry. The flower buds were bagged in each accession to avoid pollen grains and studied the fruit development pattern. It was found that 43 accessions showed fruit set under bagged condition, whereas 10 accessions failed to set fruits. In these 10 accessions, the flowers were allowed to open pollination and developing fruits were collected. Flow cytometric study was also carried out to confirm autonomous or sexual endosperm development. From the study, it was observed that the fruits developed from the bagged accessions showed 2×, 4× endosperm ploidy level as expected due to apomictic endosperm development, whereas open-pollinated fruits showed ploidy level 2×, 4× along with 2×, 3× ploidy. Therefore, it was confirmed that few genotypes of this species have pseudogamy, where the process requires presence of pollen grains for fruit set initiation without participating in endosperm development. These interesting genotypes may be used for molecular and genetic analyses of pseudogamy reproduction in guggul.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to ICAR-Directorate of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Research for providing necessary facilities for this investigation. We also thank Dr. Satyabrata Maiti, previous Director, ICAR-DMAPR and Dr. S. R. Bhat, Retd. Principal Scientist (Plant Breeding), ICAR-NRCPB, New Delhi for their encouragement to carry out this research. Financial assistance in the form of research fellowships provided to the first three authors from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Government of India, under the National Agricultural Innovation Project and Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority, New Delhi, is also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ICAR-Directorate of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Research, Anand, Gujarat, India

    Aarti Kavane, Ashok Kumar Bishoyi, Anjali Sharma & K. A. Geetha

  2. Department of Biology, CHRIST College, Rajkot, Gujarat, India

    Aarti Kavane

  3. Department of Microbiology, Marwadi University, Rajkot, Gujarat, India

    Ashok Kumar Bishoyi

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  1. Aarti Kavane
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  4. K. A. Geetha
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Contributions

AK carried out the investigation, methodology, data curation and analysis, writing of original draft; AKB contributed to data analysis and writing of final draft; AS contributed to methodology and data curation; KAG contributed to conceptualization of the investigation, supervision, correction and editing of final draft.

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Correspondence to K. A. Geetha.

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Kavane, A., Bishoyi, A.K., Sharma, A. et al. Evidence of pseudogamy in Guggul (Commiphora wightii): a comprehensive investigation based on FACS (fluorescence-activated cell sorting) analysis. Braz. J. Bot 45, 1029–1035 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40415-022-00819-y

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