Determination of Optimal Conditions to Study Chromosome Mitotic Activity and Karyotyping of Bentong Ginger with Colchicine Treatment

Chee, Kien Voon (2021) Determination of Optimal Conditions to Study Chromosome Mitotic Activity and Karyotyping of Bentong Ginger with Colchicine Treatment. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Zingiber Officinale, also known as ginger, is a plant in the Zingiberaceae family that has been widely utilized by people in their lives since ancient times. The variety of Zingiber Officinale cultivars has developed over time as a result of evolution. Bentong ginger, Bara ginger, Tambunan ginger, Feng ginger, Kampung ginger, and Thai ginger are some of the cultivars currently available in Malaysia. To date, the identification of ginger cultivars is solely based on the morphological characteristics of the ginger. In this study, we present an identification method in which, in addition to the morphology data, chromosome mitotic activity and karyotyping data were examined in ginger roots subjected to colchicine treatment. Colchicine is known to prevent the formation of a spindle and delays chromosomal separation, thus inhibits daughter nuclei and blocks cleavage process at metaphase stage. We had treated 6 root tips with 0.2% colchicine for 2 hours and 3 root tips with 0.2% for 4 hours. Our study reveals that treatment with 0.2% colchicine for 2 hours had the highest number of cells in the metaphase stage of mitosis compared to treatment with 0.2% colchicine for 4 hours. Furthermore, there were 59.3% of metaphase cells in total 172 cells for the treatment with 0.2% colchicine for 2 hours. While there was only 41.7% of metaphase cells in total 12 cells for the treatment with 0.2% colchicine for 4 hours. From the karyotyping result, the chromosome in metaphase shows condensed while the chromosome in prophase shows thinner and bended, therefore, the best mitotic stage for karyotyping is metaphase due to the condensed chromosome having more accuracy in size. The study can be continued with varying conditions of colchicine treatment to further study the mitotic activity in the different ginger cultivars.