Regeneration study of some indica rice cultivars followed by Agrobacterium -mediated transformation of highly regenerable cultivar, Pusa Basmati 1.

Five indica rice (Oryza sativa L. var.) cultivars viz., ASD 16, White Ponni, Pusa Basmati 1, Pusa Sugandh 4 and Pusa Sugandh 5 were subjected to tissue culture to study their regenerability in terms of regeneration percent and total number of regenerated plantlets obtained for a fixed sample size per variety. Regeneration potential was found to be highest (56.03%) for Pusa Basmati 1 and the lowest (30.37%) for White Ponni. The highly regenerating indica rice cultivar Pusa Basmati 1 was subjected to genetic transformation mediated by Agrobacterium tumifaciens EHA 105 harbouring the virulent Plasmid Pcambia 1305.1. Sucessful transformation events in the infected calli with this strain were assayed by transient GUS assay using 5-bromo 4-chloro 3-indolyl-D glucuronide (X-gluc) as a substrate. The frequency of transformation in terms of transient GUS assay was found to be 44.0 ± 2 S.E