Somatic hybridization of mango via protoplast fusion was attempted at cultivar level. Enzymatically isolated protoplasts from leaves of
greenhouse-grown seedlings of cvs. ‘Tommy Atkins’, ‘Keitt’ and ‘Haden’ and from proembryonic masses (PEMs) of cv. ‘Kensington
Pride’ were used. Protoplasts were fused by polyethylene glycol (PEG), embedded in Ca-alginate beads and cultured in shallow liquid
culture on shaker (30 rpm). After 4 weeks, Ca-alginate beads were depolymerized and released microcolonies of PEMs were plated
onto the solid culture media. After two consecutive subcultures, fast growing large clumps of PEMs were picked up and cultured as
PEMs line for analyses. Flow cytometry analysis of 242 PEMs lines revealed 41 tetraploid lines. DNA fi ngerprinting of the regenerated
embryos from the tetraploid lines showed that only four lines were somatic hybrids, all resulting from ‘Haden’ + ‘Kensington Pride’
protoplast fusions. By contrast, the tetraploid lines from ‘Keitt’ + ‘Kensington Pride’ and ‘Tommy Atkins’ + ‘Kensington Pride’ were
autotetraploids. Root-tip chromosome counts on resulting germinated cotyledonary embryos confi rmed that somatic hybrid embryo lines
had a chromosome number of 2n=4x=80 compared to diploid parents (2n=2x=40). Of 50 defl asked somatic-hybrid, in vitro plantlets
with true leaves only 3 plantlets formed the healthy apical bud (meristem) in the soil and grew normally.