Somaclonal variation in plants regenerated from cultures of soybean

Abstract

Plants were regenerated from embryogenic and organogenic cultures derived from immature embryos of nine soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) genotypes and extensive qualitative variation was noted in different regenerated families. Three lethal sectoral albinos were seen in the regenerated plants (R0). Variants observed in later selfed generations included twin seeds, multiple shoots, dwarfs, abnormal leaf morphology, abnormal leaflet number, wrinkled leaves, chlorophyll deficiency, partial sterility and complete sterility. The frequency of possible mutations ranged from 0 to 4% in R plants as determined by studies of corresponding R1, R2, R3 and R4 families. No significant differences were seen in the frequencies of possible mutations for embryogenic as compared to organogenic culture derived plants. Chlorophyll deficiency, sterility and wrinkled leaf traits were followed in two or more generations and showed that these traits were inherited stably. The known traits of this nature are controlled by single recessive nuclear genes. Other traits occurred more randomly and not in all generations. The genetic basis of the random variation is not known at the present time. This study indicates that heritable somaclonal variation does occur in tissue culture derived plants of soybean.

Morphogenic Aspects of Somatic Embryogenesis

“…Although it is generally believed that plants regenerated via somatic embryogenesis would be less likely to display within-clone variation than plants regenerated via other in vitro routes [37], this has not been supported by data. No significant differences were found in frequencies of possible mutations for plantlets derived from embryogenic versus organogenic cultures [277], and embryogenic callus of maize was actually shown to produce a higher frequency of phenotypic variants than organogenic callus [278].…”

Secondary somatic embryogenesis and applications in plant breeding

“…In most cases research on this was restricted to an evaluation of the morphology of a small number of plants and usually no obvious variation was found (Durham & Parrott, 1992;Gray & Mortensen, 1987;James et al, 1984;Klimaszewska, 1989;Lu & Vasil, 1981;. In Glycine max (Barwale & Widholm, 1987;Freytag et al, 1989;Shoemaker et al, 1991) this was studied in detail and variation for leaf shape, leaf variegation, growth habit, sterility, iso-enzyme patterns and lipid composition of seed could be observed. In most cases, it was found that these altered traits were heritable, showing that the variation was of genetic origin.…”

Androgenesis: A Fascinating Doubled Haploid Production Process

“…The investigators demonstrated lowest heritability for albinism proposing that proportion of albino plants can be decreased by altering environmental and cultural conditions at various stages during the process of microspore culture in wheat. Few other experiments on this aspect highlighted that frequency of albino plants is under the control of one gene in soybean, barley, and maize (Barwale and Widholm 1987 ;Collins 1927 ;Neuffer et al 1997 ) while two or more loci are involved in peanut (Dwivedi et al 1984 ). In peanut, cytoplasm inheritance has also been shown to control albinism (Branch and Kvien 1992 ).…”