POTENTIAL FOR ACCELERATED REPLICATION OF FRAXINUS SOGDIANA USING IN VITRO CULTURE AND IDENTIFICATION OF A RELIC TREE USING DNA-BARCODING

Four species of Fraxinus including F. angustifolia subsp. syriaca (Boiss.) Yalt., F. sogdiana Bunge, F. pennsylvanica Marshall and F. americana L. grow in Kazakhstan. The study aimed to determine the conditions for awakening endogenous dormancy in vitro of F. sogdiana. In the control group without vernalization, the sterile culture yield at room temperature was 30%. However, with cold treatment, this yield increased to 60%, which is twice as high. It was observed that on MS medium without the addition of hormones, 22 microshoots were obtained from unwounded seeds, whereas 39 microshoots were obtained from wounded seeds during microclonal propagation.Phylogenetic relationships and species identification were analyzed using three DNA barcoding markers, comparing F. sogdiana with species from the NCBI database. rbcL and ITS markers did not show satisfactory interspecific genetic variability among F. species. Notably, matK gene sequences effectively differentiated F. sogdiana from other species. These results provide fundamental information that is valuable for future biotechnological and molecular studies.