Establishment of in Vitro Regeneration System of Bitter Melon （Momordica Charantia L. ）

0　IntroductionBittermelon (MomordicaCharantiaL .)belongstoMomordicaofCucurbiteae .Itisnotonlyavegetablecropbutalsoanimportantmedicalherb (Hoetal.1991)inChinaandeastAsia .Inrecentyears ,phytochemistshaveisolatedanumberofpotentialmedicalcomponentsfrombittermelon ,suchastheα momorcharininactivatingribo some (Fengetal.1990 ;Leungetal.1997) ,MAP30(Momordicaanti Hivprotein) ,whichsuppressesHIV(humanimmunodeficiencyVirus)activity (Lee Huangetal.1990 ,1995 ) ,andmomordicosideAandB ,bothofwh…

Establishment of in Vitro Regeneration System of Bitter Melon (Momordica Charantia L.)

Explants of bitter melon can produce three types of callus: green, yellow green and fragile yellow callus. During the period of inducing callus, the explants are not sensitive to the kinds and proportions of phytohormone. The rate of callus inductivity is about 90.0%. However, in the process of callus differentiating adventitious bud, the kind, proportion and quantity of phytohormone and the type of callus made different result. The adventitious buds were induced successfully on MS medium+6 BA (N 6 benzyladenine) 4.0 mg l -1 +KT(kinetin) 2.0 mg l -1 ) by yellow green callus. The frequency was about 66.7 %. Yellow callus did not differentiated adventitious bud. The frequency of green callus differentiation was very low (<15.0 %) even under the most suitable conditions. The MS + ZT (zeatin) 5.0 mgl -1 +KT 0.5 mgl -1 medium was suitable for the proliferation of bud and three weeks later, the coefficient of proliferation was about 5 6. The 1/2 MS + ZT 0.02 mgl -1 or 1/2 MS media were suitable for in vitro rooting of shoot, the shoot on them could produce 6-7 new roots in three weeks. After plantation test, the survival rate of tube plantlets was about 70% and their characteristics were the same as those from seed by field test.