The total duration of the plant regeneration process from cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) cotyledonary explants was only six weeks, which included the induction of buds and their development into plants. Regeneration of shoots from cotyledons from three to five day-old seedlings ranged up to 100%. The regenerated plants were morphologically normal, flowered and set seed. The regeneration capacity of cotyledons from seven days-old and older seedlings was lowered dramatically. Most of those regenerated plants were polyploid/mixoploid and had an abnormal morphology. During seedling development (3 to 13 days), the DNA content of cotyledonary cells changed from 2C to 4C and more. The results show that the decrease in regeneration competence correspond with the change in DNA content of the cotyledonary cells.

Various aspects of a microprotoplast fusion technique and the strategies followed for intergeneric partial genome transfer (one or a few chromosomes) and alien genes from sexually-incongruent donor species to recipient species are described . The essential requirements of the microprotoplast fusion technique are the induction of micronuclei at high frequencies, as well as the isolation and enrichment of sub-diploid microprotoplasts in donor species, efficient fusion of the donor microprotoplasts with normal recipient protoplasts and stable regeneration of plants from fusion products . The results on the production of microprotoplast hybrid plants between the transformed donor lines of Solanum tuberosum and Nicotiana plumbaginifolia carrying various genetic markers, and a recipient line of Lycopersicon peruvianum or Nicotiana tabacum, and on the transfer and expression of alien genes (kanamycin resistance, j -glucuronidase) are presented . The data obtained on microprotoplast hybrid plants between S. tuberosum and L . peruvianum showed that many of the hybrids contained one potato chromosome carrying nptll and GUS, and 24 or 48 L. peruvianum chromosomes (monosomic additions), and that they were male-and female-fertile . Various applications of chromosome transfer by this technique, especially for economically-important traits (e.g . disease or stress resistance) from sexually-incompatible wild species, for construction of chromosome-specific DNA libraries through microdissection and microcloning of chromosomes, or by flow-sorting of chromosomes for genome analysis, are discussed.

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A series of fusion experiments were performed between protoplasts of a cytoplasmic albino mutant of tomato, Lycopersicon esculentum (ALRC), and gamma-irradiated protoplasts of L. hirsutum and the Solanum species S. commersonii, S. etuberosum and S. nigrum. These species were chosen for their different phylogenetic relationships to tomato. In all fusion combinations except from those between ALRC and S. nigrum, green calli were selected as putative fusion products and shoots regenerated from them. They were subsequently analyzed for their morphology, nuclear DNA composition and chloroplast DNA origin. The hybrids obtained between ALRC and L. hirsutum contained the chloroplasts of L. hirsutum and had the flower and leaf morphology of L. esculentum. After Southern blot analysis, using 13 restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) randomly distributed over all chromosomes, all hybrids showed L. esculentum hybridization patterns. No chromosomes of L. hirsutum were found. These results indicate that these hybrids were true cybrids.The putative asymmetric hybrids, obtained with S. commersonii and S. etuberosum, showed phenotypic traits of both parents. After hybridization with species-specific repetitive nuclear DNA probes it was found that nuclear material of both parents was present in all plants. In the case of S. nigrum, which combination has the greatest phylogenetic distance between the fusion parents, no hybrid plants could be obtained. The chloroplast DNA of all hybrid plants was of the donor type suggesting that chloroplast transfer by asymmetric protoplast fusion can overcome problems associated with large phylogenetic distances between parental plants.