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Creation of new fragrance cyclamen with novel pigment by ion beamsDec. 21, 2009A joint research group has created a new fragrance cyclamen mutant induced by ion beams for the first time. The new cyclamen has red-purple flower color due to delphinidin as a major pigment, which has never found in genus Cyclamen before. This new cyclamen will be produced commercially as a new fragrance variety, and also utilized as an important variety of genetic resources. The research group consists of Saitama Prefecture Agriculture and Forestry Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), and National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO). As commercial cyclamen has little fragrance, three fragrance cyclamen varieties have been bred by crossing with wild cyclamen species with good fragrance. However, flower colors of these varieties were limited to pink- or purple. Therefore, creation of new flower color with red or blue pigment has been expected. The flower color of the 'Kaori-no-mai', which is one of the three varieties, is supposed to be changed into blue-purple or white from pigment analysis. Accordingly, leaf tissues of the variety were irradiated with ion beams and regenerated. Among many regenerated plants, a novel mutant with red-purple flowers has been obtained. The mutant shows no changes in flower form, size and fragrance, but novel flower color with red-purple pigment. In the analysis of the flower pigment, major pigment was found to be delphinidin, which is famous for the pigment of blue rose. This is the first finding of delphinidin that has never found before in commercial cyclamen and wild species of Cyclamen. This new cyclamen found in this study is not only directly applicable to commercial use as a new fragrance cyclamen with novel pigment but also applicable to crossing for introducing this new pigment. Furthermore, it is hopeful to create blue flower cyclamen by re-mutation. This research was supported both by a Grant-in-Aid �Research Project for Utilizing Advanced Technologies in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries� from the Research Council, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan, and by grants from the Research and Development Program for New Bio-industry Initiatives of Bio-oriented Technology Research Advancement Institution(BRAIN). Part of this work will be published in "Plant Biotechnology" on December 25, 2009.  |
