In vitro Plant Regeneration from Cotyledon and Hypocotyl Tissues of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L., cv. Solan Vajr)

In vitro plant regeneration was assessed in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L. cv. Solan Vajr) using cotyledon and hypocotyl explants from two weeks old aseptically grown seedlings. Callus induction was achieved by culturing cotyledon and hypocotyl explants on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with different combinations and concentrations of BAP, IAA, NAA, TDZ and Adenine. Adventitious shoot buds were induced from calluses/explants by culturing on these media. Out of 54 different combinations of growth regulators (TDZ (alone), TDZ+Ad, TDZ+IAA, TDZ+NAA, TDZ+BAP), tried for cotyledon and hypocotyl explants separately, high frequency shoot regeneration from cotyledon (74.04%) and hypocotyl (79.61%) explants was obtained on MS medium supplemented with 2mg/l TDZ and 1.5mg/l TDZ+ 0.5μM IAA respectively. TDZ alone gave better results in comparison to TDZ in combination with other growth regulators in case of cotyledon explants while in case of hypocotyl explants TDZ along with IAA gave better results than TDZ (alone) and other combination of growth regulators. High percentage of root regeneration (95%) in in vitro developed shoots was obtained on MS medium supplemented with 0.2mg/l IBA in a short interval of 2 weeks. The regenerated plantlets after acclimatization were transferred to glass house conditions and both vegetative and floral characteristics were observed. An efficient and reproducible plant regeneration protocol has been standardized in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum cv. Solan Vajr). This regeneration system would be valuable in transgenic approaches for varietal improvement of tomato.