Nicotine Production by Tobacco Callus Tissues and Effect of Plant Growth Regulators

Abstract

Relationships between callus origin and the nicotine contents as well as conditions of nicotine production in tobacco tissue cultures were investigated. Nicotine contents of callus tissues were remarkably affected by plant growth regulators in the culture medium. Thus, nicotine production was promoted by the regulators at lower concentrations, but gradually inhibited when the concentrations increased over an optimal region which was different among several kinds of the regulators. The nicotine contents also considerably depended on conditions of the callus induction as well as organ from which they were derived, at least just after callus induction. The differences due to the induction conditions were considered to be gradually lost during successive cultures. Thus, the nicotine contents appeared gradually to change to a certain level which mainly depended on the concentration of the regulators added to the culture medium. When such stabilized callus tissues were transferred to a culture medium containing another regulator or different concentration of the regulator, their nicotine contents rapidly changed to a new level depending on the culture conditions during a few successive cultures. The stabilized callus tissues grown on a medium containing 0.1ppm α-NAA contained 0.5% of nicotine or more, which was almost the same level in root of the intact plant.