Pankaj Kumar, Santoshkumar Magadum, Naresh Singh, Ritu Kumari Vashishtha, Deepak Kumar, Sumit Chaudhary6, Sanjeev Ravi and Padam Singh
Abstract
In many agricultural crops the symmetrical and asymmetrical somatic hybrids produced through somatic hybridization. It helps to overcome the sexual reproduction barriers by means of cross incompatibility of distant hybridization through conventional breeding methods and produces novel genotypes. Somatic hybridization through protoplast fusion produces polyploid hybrids such as cybrid and alloplasmic lines to transfer the resistance genes for biotic and abiotic stresses and quality characteristics from related species in several crops such as brassica, barley, rice, tobacco, potato, brinjal, tomato etc. Several great novel genuses achieved such as Raphanobrassica, Moricandiobrassica, Erucobrassica, Diplotaxobrassica, Nicotiopersicon, Solanopersicon, Daturotropa, Oryzochloa and Arabidobrassica through protoplast fusion. There are some limitations for which still a matter of research in somatic hybridization.