中国生物工程杂志

Castor (Ricinus communis L.), a high energy-stored and industrial raw-material plant species, is of great value in its application. Progresses in castor biotechnology were summarized in terms of tissue culture and genetic transformation in this paper. The results of studies on tissue culture indicated that application of TDZ (thiadiazuron) gave the maximum rate of shoot proliferation in various exogenous hormones when embryo axis was used as explant. On this ground, the in vitro regeneration system was established. The studies on castor genetic transformation showed that the Agrobaterium-mediated method was the most suitable one in different castor transformation methods. The hygromycin is suitable to selection of castor transfomants while castor embryo axis is insensitive to kanamycin. The possibilities of breeding of new castor varieties and improvement of castor production via biotechnology were also discussed.