Establishment of an in vitro regeneration system suitable for agrobacterium mediated transformation of Kabuli type chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)

An in vitro regeneration system using cotyledonary explants with half embryonic axes was developed for kabuli type chickpea. Murashige and Skoog's (MS) medium was supplemented with different concentrations of two cytokinins (BAP and Kinetin) and anauxin (NAA) in order to determine the optimum concentration of hormones required for regeneration of large number of multiple shoots. Healthy multiple shoots were also used for direct rooting in tissue culture and also grafted in vitro. Shoots were also regenerated following the same protocol after the explants were infected with an Agrobacterium strain AGL1. Thus, this regeneration protocol will be useful for Kabuli type chickpea transformation using Agrobacterium tumifaciens as vector.