139 Mutation Induction of Anthurium andreanum Using Gamma Radiation P. Suraninpong and S. Wuthisuthimethavee School of Agricultural Technology Walailak University Nakhon Si Thammarat, 80161 Thailand Keywords: acute radiation, AFLP technique, Anthurium Abstract Anthuriums are one of the most popular ornamental plants in Thailand. Hence, more attractive cultivars of plants are needed to promote its cultivation industry. This study aimed to produce a new cultivar of Anthurium andreanum through mutation techniques using gamma radiation. Multiple shoots of three- month-old ‘Angle’ were acute irradiated with gamma ray at a dose of 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 gray. Percentage of survival shoots tended to decrease with the increasing doses. Shoots irradiated at 40 and 50 gray could not survive after culturing in M 1 V 2 (4 months). Gamma radiation at 19.99 gray gave 50% of survival rate (LD 50 ). Non- irradiated shoots in M 1 V 1 to M 1 V 4 showed the highest percentage of shoot induction, number of shoot per explant, plant height, number of leaves, leaf length and leaf width, significant difference from irradiated shoot. Within irradiated treatments, shoots treated with 10 gray showed all of the mentioned characteristics of higher quality or quantity than the others. In contrast, they had the lowest number of chloroplast, stomata concentration, length and width of stomata and guard cell. At M 1 V 4 (8 months), plants induced from non-irradiated shoots produced normal leaves, but plants induced from shoots of 10 gray produced the highest percentage of mosaic leaf, significantly different from the other doses. Genetic variations of mutation plants were investigated by AFLP technique. A total of twenty primers were used. Results showed that only ER-ACA/MS-CAG primer presented polymorphism of DNA banding in mosaic leaves comparing to normal leaves of the irradiated plants. There was no different characteristic found in normal leaves of both irradiated and non-irradiated plants. The mutation plants with mosaic leaves are potentially cultivated as a new Anthurium cultivar. INTRODUCTION Anthurium (Anthurium andreanum) is one of the highly prized ornamentals potted, cut flower and landscape plant in tropical and subtropical countries. In the global market, anthuriums are valued as cut flower beside the orchids. Attractive and beautiful inflorescences give the anthurium economical importance as ornamental, allowing its use in both interior and exterior decoration (Hamidah et al., 1997). As a cross pollinated species, the progenies exhibit a high degree of variation. In addition, seed are viable only for a few days and germination rate is as low as 20 to 30%. Traditionally, with vegetative propagation of anthurium by cutting or dividing the old plants producing homogeneous materials it takes years to build up the commercial quantities of elite clones and it is not advantageous (Geier, 1990). Considering the demand of hybrid cultivars, micropropagation of anthurium from different explants via organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis was reported (Pierik, 1976; Kuchnle and Sugii, 1991; Geier, 1990; Matsumoto and Kuchnle, 1996). For the breeding program of cross pollinated crops especially through tissue culture, many researchers used physical and chemical mutagens to increase the genetic variability. Radiation-inducing released mutant cultivars up to 90% (Ashraf et al., 2003). Of this, gamma radiation was successfully used, because it is safe to plant breeders and effective for many plants (Sangsiri, 2005). Furthermore, determination of mutant cultivars at molecular level led to the successful selection for plant breeders. Amplified fragment Proc. VIII th IS on In Vitro Culture and Horticultural Breeding Eds.: J.M. Canhoto and S.I. Correia Acta Hort. 1083, ISHS 2015