The Pollen Story of Brassica juncea, Indian Mustard: In vitro Pollen Germination, Pollen Tube Growth and Viability Assessment

Paomipem Phazang and Neera Bhalla Sarin^*

School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110067, India

*Corresponding Author : Neera Bhalla Sarin
School of Life Sciences, Laboratory of Genetic Manipulation for Stress Alleviation and Value Addition in Plants, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi-110067. India
Tel: 91-11-2670-4523
E-mail: neerasarin@rediffmail.com

Received: February 21, 2018 Accepted: April 25, 2018 Published: May 01, 2018

Citation: Phazang P, Sarin NB (2018) The Pollen Story of Brassica juncea, Indian Mustard: In vitro Pollen Germination, Pollen Tube Growth and Viability Assessment. J Plant Physiol Pathol 6:2. doi: 10.4172/2329-955X.1000179

The Pollen Story of Brassica juncea, Indian Mustard: In vitro Pollen Germination, Pollen Tube Growth and Viability Assessment

The Indian mustard, Brassica juncea cv. Varuna is an annual oilseed crop in India. Because of its economical importance, this crop has gained a lot of interests among plant biologists. Advancements in science and technology have promoted multiple facet research that would aid in understanding and deciphering key elements that regulate growth and development in this crop. Contributing to the venture, this study highlights the pollen aspect of the Brassica juncea plants. We succeeded in documenting pollen germination, pollen tube growth and viability in vitro in Brassica juncea cv. Varuna. We established an efficient in vitro system that yielded >70% germination of Brasssica juncea pollen grains and allowed normal growth and development of pollen tubes. The agarosebased substrate formulated not only served as matrix for pollen culture but also for microscopic analyses. In addition, it also served as suitable matrix for various dyes used, allowing easy and rapid staining for epifluorescence visualization. Flow cytometry (FCM) analyses gave rapid information about the viability of pollen grains. Conventional flouorochromatic reactions followed by microscopic examination could be avoided with FCM measurements.