Protoplast technology in relation to crop plants: Progress and problems

Summary The ready availability of isolated plant protoplasts, and the ability of these naked plant cells to fuse together, has greatly stimulated interest in the production of plant somatic hybrids. This new protoplast technology may enable interspecies hybrids to be obtained which are otherwise not possible. Many such interspecies hybrids are required amongst the crop plants, but application of this new technology to these species in presently prevented by our inability to culture cells of many of these species in vitro, and to regenerate plants reproducibly from cultured tissue.Agricultural Research Council Group, Department of Botany, University of Nottingham, U.K.