Abstract
Owing to its high ornamental, medicinal and horticultural values, herbaceous peony (Paeonia lactiflora Pall.) has been widely used as a landscaping and economical plant around the world. However, the lack of an efficient and stable regeneration system in P. lactiflora restricts its rapid propagation and large-scale production. By testing the key factors affecting callus formation, proliferation, adventitious bud induction and rooting, here, we developed an in vitro system for callus induction and regeneration in P. lactiflora. Our results show that callus formation was affected by explant types, culture environment, basal medium and plant growth regulators. Using cotyledons as explants, we established good conditions for P. lactiflora callus induction and callus proliferation. We effectively obtained adventitious buds differentiated from callus in Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium containing kinetin (KT) and thidiazuron (TDZ). Adventitious bud growth can be further promoted by adding gibberellin 3 (GA3), 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) and 6-benzyleaminopurine (6-BA) into the MS medium. A high percentage of rooting can be achieved by adding indolebutyric acid (IBA) and activated carbon (AC) to ½ MS medium. Overall, our system promotes callus induction and adventitious bud regeneration for P. lactiflora through improved culture conditions and plant growth regulators in the culture media, and lays a foundation for subsequent genetic engineering research.