Transmission genetics of the somatic hybridization process in Nicotiana

Abstract

Callus protoplasts of a plastome chlorophyll-deficient mutant of tobacco, Nicotiana tabacum, were fused with mesophyll protoplasts from one of the following five sources: cms-analogs of tobacco bearing the cytoplasms of N. suaveolens, N. undulata, N. repanda, and N. plumbaginifolia, respectively, and the wild species N. glauca. In the sixth experiment, callus cells of the tobacco chlorophyll-deficient genome mutant, homozygous for the Su gene, were hybridized with mesophyll protoplasts of the plastome chlorophyll-deficient mutant of tobacco. Individual dividing heteroplasmic fusion products were isolated mechanically and cloned in microdroplets of nutrient medium. Among the regenerants in all parental combinations, though not in all clones, besides pure green and pure chlorophyll-deficient plants, numerous variegated plant forms were obtained. The variegation of cybrid and hybrid plants was connected with their heterozygocity for chloroplast DNA composition, as demonstrated by restriction analysis. In analytical crosses, the variegation was inherited maternally by part of the sexual progeny, and variegated F1 progeny were also heterozygous for chloroplast DNA composition. As demonstrated by electron microscopic studies, the variegation is connected with the presence of “mixed”, i.e., heteroplastidic cells in leaves. The results obtained demonstrate that (1) upon somatic cell fusion, plastome genes are inherited biparentally in most fusion products, and (2) despite an evident mitotic segregation process, heterozygosity for plastome genes is a relatively durable state and can be revealed in cell hybrids of different specific combinations of plasmons after a great number of cell generations. In this regard the plastome cytogetes obtained by somatic cell fusion do not differ qualitatively from the cytoplasmic heterozygotes that arise as a result of the mutation process.