Abstract
Meristem tissues removed from aseptically cultivated tomato seedlings were treated with two chemical mutagens, and the growth and differentiation or morphological changes of the mutagen-treated leaf primordia were traced in developed leaves. The morphological variations were most frequently detected in the leaves developed from meristems treated withN-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine at 100 μg/ml. The variegated leaves were cultured on MS medium supplemented with 2.0 μg/ml BAP for in vitro isolation to multiply morphologically altered tomato plants. The calli were obtained from the leaves and successfully differentiated to plants with the variegated leaves. Consequently, the regenerated plants produced variegated leaves similar to that originally used for tissue culture. The present results suggest that the present method to apply chemical mutagens is to induce variegated leaves and to multiply their regenerants in vitro.
