Increasing the Variability of Lycopersicon Mill. by Protoplast Fusion with Petunia L.

The aim of this work was to increase the variability and induce cytoplasmic male sterility in the genus Lycopersicon , using protolast fusion with the genus Petunia . This type of male sterility can be obtained by nucleocytoplasmic interaction and has already been induced by protoplast fusion in Petunia (3) and Nicotiana (6). We therefore fused protoplasts from L. peruvianum and P. hybrida . Two levels of analysis were used to characterize the regenerated plants: the transfer of genetic information, and the expression of this information.