Abstract
Flow cytometry is a useful technique for studying plant genome size and ploidy and for analyzing the degree of polysomaty of various organs. Polysomaty is a common biological phenomenon in higher plants and is detectable as multiple peaks in the histogram by flow cytometric analysis. However, if polysomaty occurs in the target tissue, the multiple peaks may cause mis-estimates of genome size and ploidy obtained by flow cytometric analysis. In this study, we used flow cytometry to determine whether polysomaty occurred in various organs of several mulberry species. We did not find markedly polysomatic organs in any of the above-ground vegetative organs, whereas anthers exhibited a polysomatic state. Based on these results, we tried to ascertain the possibility distinguishing between two types of periclinal cytochimeras by flow cytometric analysis of mulberry leaves. One type of the cytochimera was distinguishable from its progenitor and the other type of cytochimera by flow cytometry.
© 2008 by Japan Academic Association for Copyright Clearance (Except in the USA), Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (In the USA)
