ABSTRACT
Sugarcane is an important industrial crop, ranking among the 10 most planted crops in the world. The involvement of MicroRNAs (miRNAs) in abiotic stress has been studied in plants in response to dehydration or sodium chloride by using expression analysis, suggesting stress specific regulation of expression of miRNA in sugarcane. Research on abiotic stress biology of plants has been enriched with a broad range of transcriptomic and proteomic studies. Tissue culture laboratories had successfully developed protocols for direct somatic embryogenesis (DSEM) and indirect somatic embryogenesis (ISEM) using young leaf rolls and immature inflorescence segments of Indian sugarcane cultivars. Both protocols use different media combinations of coconut water (CW), kinetin, zeatin and thidiazuron (TDZ) to optimize callus growth and regeneration. The DSEM system is useful for cost-effective and large-scale clonal propagation over ISEM, providing a new target explant source for genetic transformation.
