Tissue Culture of Capsicum Species

Tissue culture is a key tool of plant biotechnology that exploits the totopotent nature of plant cells. This concep was proposed by Haberlandt (1902), and means that plant cells have the necessary genetic and physiological mechanims to regenerate whole plants in aseptic conditions. Morphogenesis allows plant regeneration from cells, tissue, and organ culture, and is a fundamental process in the application of plant biotechnology to propagation and genetic improvement. Pepper plant regeneration is limited due to recalcitrance to in vitro manipulation of explants (Franck-Duchenne et al., 1998; Steinitz et al., 1999; Ochoa-Alejo and Ramírez Malagón, 2001). The need for viable regeneration protocols to be applied in improvement and transformation of plants is necessary to understand the nature of recalcitrance in Caspicum