Important Topic of Plant Tissue Culture Biology Class 12

Important Topic of Plant Tissue Culture Biology Class 12

How is Plant tissue culture done?

The first step is excising/ removing a small part of plant tissue, like the leaves, root or shoot of a plant then placing the cut-out part or explant in a suitable nutrient medium followed by allowing the explants to multiply and form a group of tissues(undifferentiated tissue) called callus. The callus is then allowed to multiply to form many plantlets which are then transferred to a different container for rapid multiplication. Finally, the developed plantlets are transplanted to the soil for normal growth. Therefore, tissue culture is performed using a small part of a plant to develop many plants and so is also called micropropagation. As all these plants are developed from the same part of the parent plant, they are genetically identical and called somaclones. Micropropagation, or tissue culture, is employed in the large-scale production of tomato, banana, and apple.

Plant tissue culture technique can also be used to propagate high-yielding disease-resistant varieties in a short span. Even if a plant is diseased, tissue culture can be used to get a healthy plant using the explant of the apical or axillary meristem. This is because the meristem is always free of disease and microbes. The tissue from where the growth originates in plants is referred to as the meristem. The meristem contains unspecialized cells called meristematic cells that continually divide, allowing the plant to grow. Aptly, meristem is derived from the Greek word merizein, meaning ‘to divide.’

In addition to the asexual propagation of plants, tissue culture is also used to mix two different species of plants that are otherwise sexually incompatible. Here, individual cells are isolated from each plant species and are placed in a culture medium. The cell wall gets digested in both cells which aid fusion of the two protoplasts of different species, resulting in a hybrid protoplast.

Uses of Plant tissue culture

Tissue culture is used to develop thousands of genetically identical plants from one single parent plant known as soma clones by the process, known as micropropagation. The method offers an advantage over other methods as it can be used to develop disease free plants from diseased plants by using their meristems (apical and axillary) as explants. Since this method produces new plantlets by the score of thousands, it has been used extensively for production of commercially important plants including food plants like tomato, banana, apple etc. The most notable example of the application of micro-propagation was observed in the farming of orchids as it rose exponentially due to the availability of millions of plantlets thanks to tissue culture methods.

Continue reading .......  Plant Tissue Culture Biology Class 12

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