Abstract
Sodium azide (NaN(3)) is a well known chemical mutagen which can effectively cause point mutation in plant genome. The mutagenicity by this potential mutagen was assessed in the regenerated mutant shoots of Artemisia annua using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences of nrDNA. Insertions and/or deletions were detected in nrDNA-ITS sequences of all mutant shoots and compared with control ones using the ClustalX program. The regenerated shoots TS1 and TS2 had deleted bases, whereas TS3, TS4 and TS5 had insertions, because NaN(3) replaced the cytosine (C) by thymine (T) (C-->T) (shoots; TS1 and TS4) and thymine (T) replaced by guanine (G) (T-->G) (shoot; TS5), respectively. Artemisinin content was also measured in the regenerated six-week-old shoots of A. annua. All regenerated shoots had enhanced level of this compound as compared to that in the controls, being highest in the regenerated shoot TS3.