Influence of growth regulators on callogenesis and somatic embryo development in date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) Sahelian cultivars.

This study provides a physiological analysis of somatic embryogenesis in four elite cultivars of date palms: Ahmar, Amsekhsi, Tijib, and Amaside, from the initial callogenesis to establishment and proliferation of embryogenic suspension cultures. Somatic embryos development and in vitro plants rooting were also studied. For each step, auxins and cytokinins concentrations were optimised.

Analysis of expressed sequence tags from oil palm (Elaeis guineensis).

This is the first report of a systematic study of genes expressed by means of expressed sequence tag (EST) analysis in oil palm, a species of the Arecales order, a phylogenetically key clade of monocotyledons that is not widely represented in the sequence databases. Five different cDNA libraries were generated from male and female inflorescences, shoot apices and zygotic embryos and unidirectional systematic sequencing was performed. A total of 2411 valid EST sequences were thus obtained.