ISOLATION OF SUB-DIPLOID MICROPROTOPLASTS FOR PARTIAL GENOME TRANSFERIN PLANTS - ENHANCEMENT OF MICRONUCLEATION AND ENRICHMENT OF MICROPROTOPLASTS WITH ONE OR A FEW CHROMOSOMES
Ks. Ramulu et al., ISOLATION OF SUB-DIPLOID MICROPROTOPLASTS FOR PARTIAL GENOME TRANSFERIN PLANTS - ENHANCEMENT OF MICRONUCLEATION AND ENRICHMENT OF MICROPROTOPLASTS WITH ONE OR A FEW CHROMOSOMES, Planta, 190(2), 1993, pp. 190-198
Results on the enhancement of the frequency of protoplasts with micron
uclei, and on the isolation and enrichment of smaller sub-diploid micr
oprotoplasts in transformed Nicotiana plumbaginifolia Viv. are reporte
d. Suspension cells were treated with the spindle toxin amiprophos-met
hyl (APM) for 48 h, and subsequently incubated in a mixture of cell-wa
ll-digesting enzymes in the presence of APM and cytochalasin-B. During
enzyme incubation, the frequency of micronucleated protoplasts increa
sed by a factor of 2-6. A shorter period (3 h) of incubation with a hi
gher concentration of enzymes as well as a longer period (16 h) of inc
ubation with a lower concentration of enzymes gave similar frequencies
of micronucleated protoplasts and yields of micronuclei. Further, syn
chronization by sequential treatment with the DNA-synthesis inhibitor
hydroxy urea, or aphidicolin, followed by APM and enzyme incubation, s
ignificantly increased the frequency of micronucleated protoplasts and
the number of micronuclei. The suspension of protoplasts (mono- and m
icronucleated) obtained after enzyme incubation was fractionated throu
gh a continuous iso-osmotic gradient of Percoll, using high-speed cent
rifugation. This resulted in one large and a few small bands, which co
ntained a heterogeneous population of microprotoplasts, protoplasts an
d cytoplasts. In contrast to the large band, the small bands contained
a relatively higher frequency of small sub-diploid microprotoplasts.
To separate the small sub-diploid microprotoplasts from the large micr
oprotoplasts and protoplasts of the bands, discontinuous Percoll gradi
ents and sequential filtration through nylon sieves of decreasing pore
size (48 - 20 - 15 - 10 - 5 mum) were investigated. Compared with the
former method, the latter gave a highly enriched fraction containing
predominantly (almost-equal-to 80%) small sub-diploid microprotoplasts
with DNA contents equivalent to that of one to four chromosomes, as r
evealed by microdensitometric and flow-cytometric analyses. The applic
ation of this technique for partial genome and limited gene transfer i
s discussed.