From 1989 to 1991 studies were conducted to compare the interest of two methods : back-cross and spontaneous androgenesis to convert fertile tobacco lines into sterile lines and the influence of several cytoplasms. In two years, it is possible, with the use of spontaneous androgenesis, to transform a fertile tobacco variety into an isogenic sterile variety. With the conventional method, nine back-crosses are considered necessary to reach the same objective, that needs 3 to 6 years depending on the time used to obtain one generation. Using the same cytoplasm donor, the technic used to convert fertile lines into sterile lines does not appear to have any influence on the principal agronomical or chemical characteristics of tobacco. The alteration of some properties (nornicotine content, female sterility, etc.) observed with some male-sterile tobacco lines obtained using spontaneous androgenesis may be attributed to the transferred cytoplasm, a residual heterozygotie or to the mutation induced with the procedure itself.