At ICRISAT, ongoing efforts to develop efficient tissue culture and transformation protocols for the genetic transformation of chickpea showed that only the explants derived from axillary buds show good potential for regeneration. However, such explants are usually heavily contaminated with axillary buds even though some adventitious buds may be present. This generally results in the development of non-transgenic plants or chimeric plants that make it difficult to select true transformants. Hence, major efforts were focused on manipulation of axillary meristem explants so as to eliminate shoot buds originating from pre-formed axillary bud initials and produce only direct adventitious shoot buds that are amenable to Agrobacterium - as well as biolistic-mediated gene transfer. Hence, we carried out extensive work on various factors that influence synchronous regeneration of multiple adventitious shoots and recovery of plants. These include the selection of suitable explants, age of the explant donor seedlings, and culture media. To facilitate the recovery of large numbers of rooted plants, we also developed a novel rooting and transplantation system that provides plants with a high success rate. This has resulted in the development of an efficient protocol, which can be routinely used for genetic transformation studies .The status of chickpea transgenics being developed by ICRISAT is listed in the following table.

For further Information contact Dr KK Sharma