Abstract
Most of the medicinal, aromatic and other commercially important crops are
poor rooters, and some of them are sessile in terms of seed production; hence these
plants are very difficult to propagate either through stem cuttings based vegetative
propagation or through seedlings based sexual propagation. During the last two
decades, plant tissue culture has emerged as an alternative technique for the
propagation of plants with commercial importance. Majorly, the somatic tissues, viz.,
leaf, node and shoot tip, are being used as explants for the production of genetically
similar plantlets through tissue culture studies. Recently, abnormalities with respect to
ploidy level and genetic fidelity have been reported in In Vitro regenerated plantlets.
This is mainly due to the usage of synthetic chemicals or artificial plant growth
regulators in In Vitro culture studies, the fragile nature of callus and exposure of
cultures to artificial light sources. In order to ensure the commercial production of
genetically true clones of commercial plants, nowadays it has become an obligatory
step to assess the ploidy level and genetic fidelity of regenerated plantlets with that of
mother plants. This book chapter focussed on different molecular techniques which are
in use for the detection of ploidy level and genetic fidelity of In Vitro micro propagated
plantlets.
Keywords: Medicinal plants, Tissue culture, Molecular techniques, Ploidy level, Genetic fidelity.