| Affiliations: | STEM Research Leadership |
| Project Leader: | Bin Wu bin.wu@tamu.edu Horticultural Sciences |
| Faculty Mentor: | Mengmeng Gu, Ph.D. and Hongmin Qin, Ph.D. |
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Meeting Times:
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TBD |
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Team Size:
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5
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| Open Spots: | 0 |
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Special Opportunities:
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(1) Candidates selected for our team will grasp fundamental and specific knowledge of plant physiology/ woody plant tissue culture. (2) The candidates will gain experience in using different combinations of PGRs to initiate callus formation from stems or leaf pieces, adventitious bud differentiation from callus, and rooting of regenerated plantlets. (3) The candidates will master practical hands-on skills in plant tissue culture and advanced general biology technologies. (4) The candidates will receive opportunities to present their research findings at scientific workshops, such as TAMU Student Research Week, Biology Undergraduate Research Symposium.
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Team Needs:
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Fundamental knowledge of plant physiology and basic skills in plant tissue culture will be preferred but not required. Candidates selected for this team will get well-trained. |
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Description:
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Crapemyrtle is the highest-selling deciduous flowering tree in the U.S.– 3.03 million plants with a combined value of $69.57 million were sold in 2019. By virtue of its wide distribution and long blooming period, crapemyrtle provides excellent pollen sources for native and non-native bees in the U.S., especially when other resources are naturally scarce. However, most of the crapemyrtle plants in the U.S. are Lagerstroemia limii, Lagerstroemia fauriei, and their hybrids. They are susceptible to crapemyrtle aphid (CMA) and crapemyrtle bark scale (CMBS), which pose a devastating risk to the Green Industry of crapemyrtle. The infestation engendered a significant decrease in the sale number and price value of crapemyrtle anticipated by the Green Industry. According to our previous research, Queen’s crapemyrtle (L. speciosa) is resistant to the invasive polyphagous insect, crapemyrtle bark scale, and we have acquired regenerated palntlets of Queen’s crapemrytle from its leaf callus. The final goal of this project is to confirm whether our determined PGR combination for each step of the regeneration system can generate genetically identical plantlets from the mother plant. To reach our final goal, four objectives will be involved: (1) Maintain contamination-free plantlets of Queen’s crapemyrtle via micropropagation, which can consistently provide fresh materials for establishing the regeneration system. (2) Increase the differentiation ratio of adventitious buds from callus of Queen’s crapemyrtle by optimizing the PGRs combination. (3) Develop a highly efficient protocol to assess the genetic fidelity for the regenerated Queen’s crapemyrtle |