ABSTRACT
Biotechnological methods which supplemented the conventional breeding methods are extremely valuable today because of the high contamination level of the environment with insecticides, herbicides and artificial fertilizers. The review describes current investigations of tissue and cell cultures in Bulgaria which began at the end of the sixty's. The main directions of our investigations are: clonal micropropagation combined with virus elimination; overcoming the incompatibility in remote hybridization; haploid production; somaclonal and gametoclonal variation; in vitro mutagenesis and cell selection; protoplasts culture, somatic hybridization and transformation in economically important plant species.