Botany · Ch 5 — Plant Tissue Culture
Milestones in Plant Tissue Culture
Milestones in Plant Tissue Culture
Tissue culture is the technique of growing plant protoplasts, cells, tissues or organs away from their normal environment, under artificial, sterile conditions in the laboratory - a process also called in vitro growth (from the Latin for 'in glass'). Because a single explant can be multiplied into several thousand plants within a short span of time and space under controlled conditions, tissue culture is widely used both for commercial plant production and for plant research; it is an indispensable tool for regenerating transgenic plants, alongside applications such as clonal propagation of elite varieties, conservation of endangered species, production of virus-free plants, germplasm preservation, and industrial-scale production of secondary metabolites.
The technique traces its origin to Gottlieb Haberlandt, a German botanist who in 1902 proposed the concept of totipotency and was also the first person to culture plant cells - using mesophyll cells of Lamium purpureum - under artificial conditions, successfully obtaining cell proliferation. For this, he is regarded as the father of tissue culture.
| Component | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Calcium nitrate | 3.0 g |
| Magnesium sulfate | 1.0 g |
| Potassium nitrate | 1.0 g |
| Dibasic Potassium phosphate | 1.0 g |
| Sucrose (optimal) | 50.0 g |
| Deionized water | 1000.0 ml |
| Scientist(s) and Year | Key Contribution |
|---|---|
| Haberlandt (1902) | Cultured plant cells (Lamium purpureum mesophyll) in Knop's salt solution with glucose and peptone; proposed the concept of Totipotency |
| P.R. White (1934) | Developed root cultures using Knop's solution supplemented with pyridoxine, thiamine and nicotinic acid |
| F.C. Steward (1948) | Used coconut water to obtain cell proliferation from carrot explants, demonstrating cellular totipotency |
| Morel and Martin (1952, 1955) | Developed virus-free Dahlia and potato plants using shoot meristem culture |
| Murashige and Skoog (1962) | Formulated the MS medium, the most widely used tissue culture medium |
| Kanta et al. (1962) | Achieved test-tube fertilisation in flowering plants |
| Yamada et al. (1963) | Produced calli and free cells in culture of Tradescantia reflexa |
| Guha and Maheshwari (1964) | Produced in vitro haploid embryos from anthers of Datura |
| Vasil and Hildebrandt (1965) | Achieved differentiation of tobacco plants from single isolated cells |
| Takebe et al. (1971) | Regenerated tobacco plants from isolated mesophyll protoplasts |
| Carlson and co-workers (1971-72) | Fused protoplasts of Nicotiana glauca and N. longsdorffii to produce the first interspecific somatic hybrid |
| Melchers and co-workers (1978) | Produced the potato-tomato intergeneric hybrid, 'pomato' |
| Chilton (1983) | Produced transformed tobacco plants by single-cell transformation and gene insertion |
| Horsh et al. (1984) | Developed transgenic tobacco using Agrobacterium-mediated gene transfer |