BIOLOGIA PLANTARUM 52 (3): 569-572, 2008 569 BRIEF COMMUNICATION Effect of growth regulators and ethylmethane sulphonate on growth, and chlorophyll, sugar and proline contents in Dracaena sanderiana cultured in vitro A. JUNAID 1,2 , A. MUJIB 1 * and M.P. SHARMA 1 Cellular Differentiation and Molecular Genetics Section, Department of Botany, Hamdard University, New Delhi-110062, India 1 Plant Tissue Culture and Agriculture Research Laboratory, Technical Institute of Dubai, P.O. Box 19099, Dubai, United Arab Emirates 2 Abstract A high efficient four step protocol (callus initiation, regeneration, shoot elongation and rooting) for in vitro propagation of Dracaena sanderiana Sander ex Mast was developed. Callusing was achieved from nodal stem segment explants treated with various concentrations of ethylmethane sulphonate (EMS) on MS medium supplemented with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D; 1.5 g m -3 ). A significant increase in callus induction percentage and biomass production was noticed from lower EMS treated lines (ET 1 and ET 2 ) comparatively to control and other (ET 3 , ET 4 and ET 5 ) lines. Calli of ET 1 line showed high regeneration potential on MS medium with N 6 -benzylaminopurine (BAP; 1.75 g m -3 ). Length of microshoots, which was reduced by EMS, restored by addition of gibberellic acid (GA 3 ; 0.4 g m -3 ). A marked increase in rooting with increasing EMS concentration was noticed on MS medium fortified with 3-indole- butyric acid (IBA; 1.5 g m -3 ). Additional key words: auxins, cytokinins, gibberellic acid, in vitro mutagenesis, lucky bomboo. ⎯⎯⎯⎯ Dracaena sanderiana Sander ex Mast (lucky bomboo) belongs to family Agavaceae. It is distributed in tropical and subtropical open lands of Africa and India. Despite medicinal and ornamental importance of Dracaena species, not much work has been done in in vitro conditions and they are mostly propagated vegetatively (Junaid et al. (2008). However, the vegetatively propagated plants accumulate several bacterial, fungal, viral and mycoplasmal diseases. In vitro mutagenesis can overcome these problems. It includes the rapid vegetative multiplication of plants after treatments with various mutagenic agents (Maluszynski et al. 1995, Predieri 2001, Muthusamy et al. 2007). In the present investi- gation the effect of different concentrations of ethyl- methane sulphonate (EMS) on in vitro grown nodal explant of D. sanderiana was studied together with optimalization of growth regulator combination for their with further growth. Different biochemical analyses were also made in order to evaluate the biochemical diffe- rences between normal and EMS treated plantlets. The explants employed for mutagenesis studied were nodal stem segment of in vitro grown Dracaena sanderiana Sander ex Mast. They were placed in 250 cm 3 Erlenmeyer conical flask (Borosil, Mumbai, India) with 50 cm 3 of filter-sterilized EMS solution. A range of EMS concentrations (0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.2 and 1.6 cm 3 m -3 ) were used and designated as control, ET 1 , ET 2 , ET 3 , ET 4 and ET 5. Erlenmeyer flasks were agitated on rotatory shaker for 8 h at temperature of 25 ± 2 °C). Explants were removed from flasks inside the laminar hood, transferred to Murashige and Skoog (1962) medium (10 pieces per conical flask) with 1.5 g m -3 2,4-dichloro- phenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D). Calli induced (80 - 90 mg) were transferred for regeneration on MS medium supplemented with optimized concentration of N 6 -benzyl- aminopurine (BAP; 1.75 g m -3 ; data unpublished). The ⎯⎯⎯⎯ Received 3 April 2007, accepted 25 March 2008. Abbreviations: BAP - N 6 -benzylaminopurine; 2,4-D - 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid; GA 3 - gibberellic acid; IBA - indole-3-butyric acid; EMS - ethylmethane sulphonate; MS medium - Murashige and Skoog medium; ANOVA - analysis of variance; DMRT - Duncan’s multiple range test. Acknowledgement: Authors are highly grateful to Z. Fatima, S. Fatima and Zahid H. Siddiqui to provide the selfless support during the course of study. * Corresponding author; fax: (+91) 11 26059663, e-mail: junica_786@yahoo.com