ESTABLISHMENT OF PHELIPANCHE RAMOSA TISSUE CULTURE AND EFFECT OF KANAMYCIN ON CULTURE GROWTH

Orobanchaceae family includes parasitic plants that attack many important food crops. Genus Phelipanche, belonging to this family is considered to cause high negative impact on food production. Developing Phelipanche plant must establish connection with the root of host plant, from which it receives all resources needed for further development. Nowadays big effort is directed to finding a reliable strategy to control parasitic plants. In vitro cultures of P. ramosa can be genetically manipulated and used for study of genes involved in host-parasite interactions. We established in vitro cultures of parasitic species Phelipanche ramosa on solid and liquid media in parallel. The obtained results point out that development of P. ramosa calli was origin specific. We tested the effect of antibiotic kanamycin on in vitro cultures of Phelipanche ramosa with aim to develop system for its genetic manipulation and selection of transgenic tissue using kanamycin-resistance approach. The selection pressure of kanamycin was stronger in liquid grown cultures. However, concentrations of kanamycin tested (up to 250 mg.l(-1)) did not ensured elimination of kanamycine non-resistant tissue. Tests of other candidate selection markers are currently in progress.