GENETIC STABILITY ANALYSIS OF REGENERATED PLANTS OF Cinchona ledgeriana BY RANDOM AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA (RAPD)

Long-term maintenance of plant cell in tissue culture is known to induce somaclonal variation in regenerated plants. Clones of C. ledgeriana were micropropagated using nodal culture. The objective of this research was to analyze the genetic stability of C. ledgeriana plantlets from several passages with their parent plants as source of explants by random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD). Five arbitrary decamers were used to amplify genomic DNA from in vitro and in vivo plant material. All of RAPD profiles from regenerated plants after 4 - 5 passage or 4 – 5 month old in vitro culture were monomorphic and similar to mother plants. It was indicated that up to five times of subcultures or 5 month in culture genetically plantlets were exactly the same as the mother plant. This result showed that clonal propagation of C. ledgeriana up to five times passages or 5 month in culture produce stable genetic integrity of plantlets. Keywords: Genetic stability, RAPD, Tissue culture, Cinchona ledgeriana