Growth of Potato Shoot Cultures on Media with Antibiotics for Elimination of Bacterial Contamination

Abstract The aim of our work was to evaluate the effect of selected antibiotics on the growth of potato shoot cultures in the Gene Bank of the Slovak Republic collection and to determine the type and dose that may be used to treat potato cultures endangered by endophytic bacteria. Antibiotics Chloramphenicol at doses 20, 50 and 100 mg/L, Gentamycin and Rifampicin in doses 20, 50, 100, 200 mg/L and the combination of Gentamycin and Rifampicin with 100 mg/L of each were used. Growth parameters – the shoot length and the number of nodal segments per shoot and rooting of ten cultivars of Solanum tuberosum L. of different origin were evaluated. Chloramphenicol already at the lowest dose had the strong inhibitory effect on regeneration, growth, and rooting of shoots. Gentamycin inhibited the growth of shoots gradually with increasing dose of it, rooting of shoots was negatively affected using the dose 50 mg/L or higher. Rifampicin up to 100 mg/L had the minimal effect on the shoots growth, rooting of shoots was not affected, but shoots were characterised by smaller or stunted leaves. Although the growth of shoots was affected, all ten genotypes used in the experiments were able to regenerate and grow at the highest dose of Rifampicin and Gentamycin. According to the results, it is highly probable that these antibiotics up to 100 mg/L or their combination would be suitable for culture preservation of the most genotypes in the gene-bank collection. On the other hand, Chloramphenicol cannot be recommended due to its strong detrimental effect on potato shoot cultures.