Towards reducing genotype specificity in regeneration protocols after somatic hybridization between cultivated sunflower and wild Helianthus species.

Successful application of somatic hybridization in sunflower breeding is limited by low regeneration percentage from fusion products. The effect of pre-treatment media composition on shoot regeneration from electrofusion products of wild and cultivated sunflower was investigated in this paper, with the aim to determine if there is room for improvement of the existing regeneration protocols in order to make them less genotype-dependent. Protoplasts isolated from hypocotyls of two inbred lines of cultivated sunflower were electrofused with mesophyll protoplasts of H.