Assessment of Genetic Stability of Micropropagated Curcuma caesia through Cytophotometric and Molecular Analysis

Protocol has been standardized for micropropagation of medicinally important Curcuma caesia using sprouted bud explants from rhizome. Tissue culture raised plantlets of C. caesia could be conserved in vitro through subculturing at an interval of 4 months. The genetic stability of micropropagated plants was studied with an interval of 6 months up to 30 months in culture using cytophotometric, random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter simple sequence repeats (ISSR) analysis. Cytophotometric analysis of 151 plants revealed a unimodal distribution of the DNA content with a peak corresponding to 4C nuclear DNA (3.5 pg). RAPD and ISSR analysis revealed mopnomorphic bands showing the absence of polymorphism in all 73 regenerants analyzed, thus confirming the genetic uniformity among in vitro grown somaclones of Curcuma caesia.