Preliminary Studies on Isolation and Culture of Protoplasts from Sandalwood (Santalum Album)

Abstract

One of the most significant developments in the field of plant tissue culture during recent years has been the isolation, culture and fusion of protoplasts. The technique is important because of its far reaching implications in studies of forest tree improvement1. Somatic hybridization has been reported successfully in Nicotiana and few other species . Several workers in different laboratories are currently adapting this technique with tree species with little success. In our investigations on commercially important trees for plant improvement, sandalwood (Santalum album) is one. This paper reports our results on isolation and culture of callus protoplasts (shoot callus, endosperm callus) and leaf protoplasts.