IMPLICATIONS OF POLLEN BIOTECHNOLOGY IN AGRI-HORTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT- A REVIEW

摘要

Pollen biotechnology deals with the manipulation of different aspects of pollen biology for crop production and improvement. Increasing demand for new and better cultivars of agri-horticultural crops can be met with the help of biotechnological techniques. Pollen can provide a major access point for manipulation of sporophytic genome. The gametophyte of higher plants is an independent organism that expresses its own genetic information and can influence the genetic constitution of the sporophytic generation. Pollen is a direct product of genetic recombination and by using recombinant DNA technology, gene segments can be-isolated from pollen and cloned which can lead to establishment of cDNA library. Pollen has been found useful for introduction of exogenous DNA in several plant systems (genetic transformation). Crop improvement programmes can take advantage of the emerging new biotechnologies by integrating all the available protocols. Some of these are reviewed.