Ascertaining clonal fidelity of tissue culture raised plants of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bambusa balcooa</Emphasis> Roxb. using inter simple sequence repeat markers

One of the major applications of plant tissue culture technology is that the regenerants are genetically identical to the mother plant. Although, of the various methods of in vitro propagation, axillary branching method is regarded as the safest, the possibility of genetic variation (somaclonal variation) cannot be ruled out even in this method. In the present study, inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) marker assay was employed to validate the clonal fidelity of in vitro raised Bambusa balcooa plantlets multiplied by enhanced axillary proliferation up to 33 passages. Fifteen ISSR primers generated a total of 99 amplicons among the tissue-cultured progenies. Analysis of ISSR patterns revealed that the bands were shared by both the parent clump and the in vitro raised plants confirming the genetic stability in the latter.