Endoreduplication in floral structure, vegetative and fruits of red pitaya with white pulp

Abstract

Endoreduplication is the change of cellular cycle that result DNA duplication without cell division and could result endopolyploid cells. This phenomenon is common in plants and animals and considered as evaluative strategy. Although endoreduplication reported in various plant species, the information about these phenomena in red pitaya is rare. Therefore, this work was done with the objective of studying the endoreduplication in Hylocereus undatus Haw. using flow cytometry analysis. In this study were used the tissue from the flower structure, fruits, roots, cladode, and thorns of the pitaya plant.To determine the DNA content approximately 50 mg the sample of each treatment with Pisum sativum (the internal standard reference) were grind in plate of petri dishes contained 1 mL of cold Marie buffer to release the nucleus.The nuclear suspension was filtered through 50 µm mesh. The nucleuses were colored with 25 µL of 1 mg/L mL of propidium iodide. For each treatment, three samples of 10 thousand nucleuses were analyzed in cytometry Facscalibur (Becton Dickinson). The content of nuclear DNA (pg) was estimated as the ratio between fluorescence intensity of the G1 nucleus of the standard and the G1nucleus of the sample multiplied by the quantity of DNA of the internal reference. In conclusion, the endoreduplication occurred in all part of the plants analyzed except in the aculeus and the roots. The analysis evidenced different index of DNA content in the tissues analyzed being observed up to four different ploidy levels. The phenomena of endoreduplication occurs in all parts of the plant analyzed except in aculeus and roots.