Effect of sucrose, hormones, and metabolic inhibitors on the development of pollen embryoids in anther cultures of dihaploid Solanum tuberosum

Abstract

In anther cultures of potato, sucrose played an important part in the development of pollen grains to embryoids. Up to 40% of the anthers responded when sucrose was used at a concentration of 60 g/L. A high sucrose concentration was found to be an essential requirement for the development of embryoids only during the early phase of pollen divisions and this effect could be partially mimicked by glucose. Besides sucrose, hormones were found to be essential to elicit the optimal response in addition to activated charcoal. The insensitivity of pollen divisions to actinomycin D during the early phase suggests that the initial divisions may proceed independently of newly synthesized RNA.