Department of Genetics, Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125004
A NaCl tolerant cell line of brinjal (Solatium mehngena L.) has been isolated, as a spontaneous variant, by screeing cell suspension cultures on nutrient agar-medium containing 1% NaCl (Electrical conductivity -17.5 m mho/cm), a concentration lethal to the wild type cells. The selected tolerant line required an addition of 0.25% NaCl in the medium for optimal growth and grew better than the unselected cultures at higher levels NaCl. of In saline media, salt-tolerant cells accumulated higher Na+ than the control cultures. While K+ level in the selected and wild type cells decreased with increasing salnity, the depression was more pronounced in the latter.
