WHAT IS PLANT TISSUE CULTURE?

Plant tissue culture is a technique of growing plant cells,

tissues, organs, seeds or other plant parts in a sterile
environment on a nutrient medium
 T YPES OF CULTURES

Organ Culture
Explant Culture
Callus Culture
Protoplast Culture
ORAGN CULTURE
EXPLANT CULTURE
CALLUS CULTURE
PROTOPLAST CULTURE
 WHY?

 The production of clones of plants that

produce particularly good flowers, fruits, or
have other desirable traits.

 To quickly produce mature plants.

 The production of multiples of plants in the

absence of seeds or necessary pollinators to
produce seeds.

 The regeneration of whole plants from plant

cells that have been genetically modified.
 WHY?

 The production of plants in sterile containers

reduces disease transmission

 Allows production of plants from seeds that

otherwise have very low chances
of germinating and growing,
i.e.: orchids and Nepenthes.

 To clean particular plants of viral and other

infections and to quickly multiply these plants
as 'cleaned stock' for horticulture and
agriculture.
 TERMINOLOGY

Explant
 Living tissue transferred
from a plant to an artificial
medium for culture.

 It can be any portion of

the shoot, leaves, roots,
flower or cells from a plant.
 HOW?

Adult plant cells are totipotent, meaning they have the ability to give rise to a fully
differentiated plant. Because of this, it is possible to collect cells from a mature
plant and use those cells to produce clones of that plant.
 PLANT TISSUE CULTURE BASICS

 Modern plant tissue culture is performed under aseptic

conditions

 Living plant materials from the environment are naturally

contaminated on their surfaces (and sometimes interiors)
with microorganisms, so surface sterilization of starting
material (explants) in chemical solutions (usually alcohol and
sodium or calcium hypochlorite is required).
METHODS
 GROWTH REGULATORS
 auxin - Roots
 cytokinin - Shoots
 gibberellin – Cell Enlargement
 abscisic acid – Plant stress hormone
 ethylene – BAD!
 HORMONE COMBINATIONS

 Callus development
 Adventitious embryogenesis
 Rooting of shoot cuttings
 Adventitious shoot and root formation
Applications[edit]

Plant tissue culture is used widely in the plant sciences, forestry, and in
horticulture. Applications include:

The commercial production of plants used as potting, landscape, and florist

subjects, which uses meristem and shoot culture to produce large numbers of
identical individuals.

1.To conserve rare or endangered plant species.[6]

2.A plant breeder may use tissue culture to screen cells rather than plants for
advantageous characters, e.g. herbicide resistance/tolerance.

3.Large-scale growth of plant cells in liquid culture in bioreactors for production of

valuable compounds, like plant-derived secondary metabolites and
recombinant proteins used as biopharmaceuticals.[7]

4.To cross distantly related species by protoplast fusion and regeneration of the
novel hybrid.
]
5.To rapidly study the molecular basis for physiological, biochemical, and reproductive
mechanisms in plants, for example in vitro selection for stress tolerant plants. [8]

6.To cross-pollinate distantly related species and then tissue culture the resulting
embryo which would otherwise normally die (Embryo Rescue).

7.For chromosome doubling and induction of polyploidy,[9] for example doubled

haploids, tetraploids, and other forms of polyploids. This is usually achieved by
application of antimitotic agents such as colchicine or oryzalin.

8.As a tissue for transformation, followed by either short-term testing of genetic

constructs or regeneration of transgenic plants.

9.Certain techniques such as meristem tip culture can be used to produce clean plant
material from virused stock, such as sugarcane[10], potatoes and many species of soft
fruit.
Production of identical sterile hybrid species can be obtained.

10.Large scale production of artificial seeds through somatic embryogenesis [11