Adventitious shoot regeneration in a bioreactor system and EST-PCR based clonal fidelity in lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Ait.)

Adventitious shoots were regenerated from leaf explants of three lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Ait.) clones: ‘QB1’, ‘QB2’ and ‘PB1’ by culturing on a gelled basal medium (BM) with 2.3–4.5 μM thidiazuron (TDZ) for four weeks followed by in a bioreactor system containing the same liquid medium but with 1.2–2.3 μM TDZ for another four weeks. Young expanding basal leaf segments with the adaxial side touching the culture medium and maintained for two weeks in darkness, produced the best results. Callus development and shoot regeneration were genotype dependent. Adventitious shoots were elongated in the liquid BM with 1 μM zeatin and rooted on a three peat: two perlite (v/v) medium. Acclimatized plantlets were grown actively in the greenhouse with an apparent normal leaf and shoot morphology. Ten random ‘QB1’ regenerated plants were screened using 14 expressed sequence tag-polymerase chain reaction (EST-PCR) markers and showed similar monomorphic amplification profiles confirming clonal fidelity of in vitro-derived ‘QB1’ plants. Results obtained suggested the possibility of adventitious shoot regeneration and true-to-type lowbush blueberry micropropagation using a bioreactor system combined with gelled medium.