| dc.description.abstract | Coffee is one of the most important cash crops produced in the world with great economic returns to growers
and national gross domestic product. Somatic embryogenesis is a morphogenetic processes leading to
plantlet regeneration and these processes are coupled with changes in the levels of primary metabolites. The
present experiment established relationships of endogenous substances with direct somatic embryogenesis of
coffee ‘Ruiru 11’. Laboratory experiments were set up at Coffee Research Institute, Ruiru-Kenya between 2014
and 2017. The set up was in a completely randomised design, replicated three times and repeated once. Third
leaf pair explants were excised from 8-month-old greenhouse-grown mother plants and cultured in half
strength Murashige and Skoog basal salts augmented with Thidiazuron. Once embryos had developed, the
cultures were analysed for endogenous substances using HPLC and GCMS. Sucrose, phenolics, alkaloids,
amino acids, fatty acids and their derivatives correlated positively, whereas fructose and glucose correlated
negatively with the other biochemical components. Endogenous sucrose, chlorogenic acid, caffeine amino
acid, fatty acids and their derivatives are potential biomarkers for coffee somatic embryogenesis, whereas
endogenous fructose and glucose are inhibitors of the same. Further studies regarding the status of the
biochemical components, especially in particular stages of embryo development should be conducted to
establish treatments that can improve coffee direct somatic embryo development. | en_US |
