Advances in in vitro culture of the Brassicaceae crop plants

Abstract

Plant regeneration has been optimized increasingly by organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis using a range of explants with tissue culture improvements focusing on factors, such as the age of the explant, genotype, media supplements and Agrobacterium co-cultivation. The production of haploids and doubled haploids using microspores has accelerated the production of homozygous lines in Brassicaceae crop plants. Somatic cell fusion has facilitated the development of interspecific and intergeneric hybrids in sexually incompatible species of Brassica. Crop improvement using somaclonal variation has also been achieved. Transformation technologies are being exploited routinely to elucidate the gene function and contribute to the development of novel enhanced crops. The Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is the most widely used approach for the introduction of transgenes into Brassicaceae, and in vitro regeneration is a key factor in developing an efficient transformation method in plants. Although many other Brassicaceae are used as model species for improving plant regeneration and transformation systems, this paper focuses on the recent technologies used to regenerate the most important Brassicaceae crop plants.