Anther Culture of Transgenic Pepper (Capsicum annuum L.)

Pepper (Capsicum annum L.) is an important vegetable crop that can surely benefit from plant biotechnology. Using transgenic pepper lines resistant to fungal disease, anther culture system was applied to show the possibility to use in molecular breeding program. We compared some conditions for enhancing anther culture efficiency. We did not find the beneficial effect of low pretreatment of anthers in both wild type and transgenic lines. By comparing medium compositions, anthers produced more microspore-derived embryos or embryogenic callus in combination of 0.1 mg/L of 2,4-D and 0.1 mg/L of kinetin. In anther culture response, wild type had better androgenesis than transgenic lines. PCR results showed that plants regenerated from anthers of transgenic pepper lines had transgenes, HPT/PepEST. By hygromycin tests, plants developed from anthers of transgenic lines showed resistance to hygromycin. A total of 48 plants were produced from anther culture of wild type and transgenic lines, among them, 43 were developed from wild type and 5 plants from transgenic lines. Six plants and one plant spontaneously set pepper fruits in wild type anther-derived plants and anther derived plants from transgenic lines, respectively. Regenerated plants showed various phenotypes and some of plants grew normally. These results showed the possibility to use anther culture system for accelerating breeding programs by the combination with plant biotechnology.