Physiological and genomic variations in rice cells recovered from direct immersion and storage in liquid nitrogen

The use of cryoprotectants and slow cooling rates are routine procedures for the cryopreservation of plant cell lines. However, our results with rice (Oryza sativa L., cv. Taipei 309) show that calli can be cryopreserved by direct immersion and stored in liquid nitrogen without any cryoprotection. The efficiency of recovery using this method, as well as a conventional method was generally increased with a previous abscisic acid (ABA) treatment. Following cryopreservation, calli demonstrated some differences with respect to unfrozen calli of the same lines. Thus, resistance to freezing stress (−20°C for 2 h) increased significantly in all lines tested, irrespective of their pre-incubation wi…