Pro studenty

Microclonal propagation, or micropropagation, is a modern plant biotechnology technique used for the rapid multiplication of plant stock and the large-scale production of genetically uniform plants. This method is widely employed in agriculture and horticulture to propagate genetically modified plants, facilitate genome editing applications, and enhance conventional breeding efforts. It is particularly valuable for seedless plants, species with limited vegetative reproduction, and crops requiring disease-free, high-yielding plant stock.

Micropropagation techniques, including meristem culture, callus culture, embryo culture, and protoplast culture, enable efficient plant regeneration. These approaches play a crucial role in developing transgenic plants and genome-edited crops by providing a reliable platform for genetic modifications and plant transformation.

Brassica species, such as cabbage (Brassica oleracea), mustard (Brassica juncea), canola (Brassica napus), and various subspecies and cultivars of Brassica rapa, are globally significant crops serving as essential sources of food, oil, and fodder. Optimizing microclonal propagation protocols for these species can improve their availability, disease resistance, and adaptability in sustainable agriculture.

This project aims to establish an efficient microclonal propagation protocol for selected Brassica species while equipping students with hands-on experience in aseptic tissue culture, media preparation, callus induction, organogenesis, and plantlet acclimatization. The student will also get familiar with gene expression analysis using both standard and advanced microscopy techniques and quantitative real-time PCR and plant transformation. The findings will contribute to in vitro plant regeneration research and offer applications in crop improvement and conservation.

The work will be performed in the well-equipped research lab as a part of ongoing research projects being solved in the hosting lab.

Literature:

Romero-Muñoz M, Pérez-Jiménez M. Optimizing Brassica oleracea L. Breeding Through Somatic Hybridization Using Cytoplasmic Male Sterility (CMS) Lines: From Protoplast Isolation to Plantlet Regeneration. Plants (Basel). 2024 Nov 19;13(22):3247. doi: 10.3390/plants13223247. PMID: 39599456; PMCID: PMC11598112.

Kumar P, Srivastava DK. Biotechnological applications in in vitro plant regeneration studies of broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. italica), an important vegetable crop. Biotechnol Lett. 2016 Apr;38(4):561-71. doi: 10.1007/s10529-015-2031-x. Epub 2015 Dec 31. PMID: 26721234.