Abstract

Two as well as three way interactions of three eggplant genotypes, media compositions and explants (hypocotyl, cotyledon and leaf) showed significant differences for plant regeneration. Among three explants, hypocotyl induced highest percent callusing, but cotyledon showed best results for somatic embryogenesis on all the media compositions. For three way interactions, cotyledon of BSR-27 induced significantly highest somatic embryogenesis (94.47%) on Murashige and Skooge (MS) fortified with 1.5 mgl^-1 indole butyric acid (IBA) + 1.0 mgl^-1 6-benzyl aminopurine (BAP). However, hypocotyl of BR-16 was not able to induce somatic embryogenesis on MS media fortified with 1.5 mgl^-1 IBA + 1.0 mgl^-1 BAP. Moreover, the embryogenic callus from cotyledon of BSR-27 (72.24%) achieved highest plant regeneration from somatic embryos on MS supplemented with 2.5 mgl^-1 BAP + 1.0 mgl^-1kin + 0.2% activated charcoal. Therefore, the performance of cotyledon explant of  BSR-27 is the best on MS fortified with 1.5 mgl^-1 IBA + 1.0 mgl^-1 BAP and 2.5 mgl^-1 BAP + 1.0 mgl^-1kin + 0.2% activated charcoal for somatic embryogenesis and plant regeneration, respectively.

Key words: Callus, somatic embryogenesis, hypocotyl, cotyledon, leaf.