EN
In plant tissue cultures, somaclonal variation is often observed. It can be an effect of the changes in the individual chromosome number or in the ploidy level. Flow cytometry, a fast and accurate method for the estimation of the nuclear DNA content, can be applied to study these changes. The DNA content in differentiated tissues of Nicotiana tabacum cultured in vitro was estimated using Partec CCA flow cytometer, starting from explant, through callus, up to regenerated shoots. The explant constituted stem segments of N. tabacum plants, non-transformed and transformed with gfp gene. Flow cytometric analysis showed differences in the proportion of 2C, 4C, 8C and 16C cells in plant tissue in different culture stages. Among the regenerated plantlets originated from non-transformed and transformed plants, diploid, tetraploid and mixoploid forms were observed. The transformation did not influence the share of cells representing different ploidy levels in the investigated plant material.