Plant Tissue Culture

“Plant Tissue Culture” is commonly referred to the in vitro culture of plant parts, tissue or organ. Ever since its inception in 1902, as a simple sustained prolonged culture of plant tissues, the field progressed to develop the differential response of the cultured tissues under variable chemical conditions provided the impetus to utilize the technique in a profitable manner. Over the years, the application of the technique became apparent and was used not only to understand the growth and differentiation of tissue or organs, but also extended to industrial applications of these techniques including cell culture. So it became an integral part of biotechnology and is being routinely employed for the improvement of crops and other economically important plants for commercial exploitation in agriculture, genetic engineering horticulture, floriculture, propagation, conservation and pharmaceutical industries. Plant tissue culture started with the concept of ‘totipotency of plant cells’ laid down by the German scientist, Haberlandt in 1902 who is called Father of Tissue Culture.

However, he could not succeed in culturing plant cells but postulated that in anappropriate nutrient media, the cells can divide, grow and differentiate. It is only in 1930s that three scientists, Nobecourt (1934), White (1939) and Gouthret (1939) working in different countries and on different plant tissues demonstrated experimentally that cells or tissues can be cultured continuously in defined media and plantlets can be regenerated.
To ensure continuous culture of tissue and their differentiation into root/shoot orregeneration into complete plants many synthetic media have been developed by different scientists all over the world from time to time. Of the different media, the medium formulated by Murashige and Skoog (1962) is widely used. Plant Tissue culture got a great momentum as the range of possible experiments on the control of growth of cultured embryos was greatly extended with the discoveries and isolation of auxins (1934), gibberellicacid (1939) and cytokinins (1955).
In tissue cultures plantlets may be regenerated either through root and shoot differentiation(organogenesis) or the cells may develop zygote- like structures called ‘somaic embryos’ or ‘embryoids’ (embryogenesis). The first report of embryoid formation from carrot tissues appeared in 1958-1959 by Reinert (Germany) and Steward (USA). Haploid and homozygous diploids are highly desirable for breeding programmes for superior traits. Guha and Maheshwari (1964), for the first time regenerated haploids from Datura innoxia. Another breakthrough was by Melchers (1977) who demonstrated the fusion of protoplasts of tomato and potato. The hybrid developed and produced flowers and fruits called ‘pomato’ and the suckers ‘topato’, the latter were thick and flat, full of starch grains (equivalent of potato).
In view of the significance of technique, scientists have turned to seek benefit that accrued from the practical application of the technique. The tissue culture heralds a new area of progress in science as it has been upgraded to the status of biotechnology in extending its scientific frontiers to a wide range of problems and innovative ventures attending with an element of novelty, curiosity and expectation in man’s quest for food, fibre and pharmaceuticals. In short, are developments and culmination of Plant Tissue culture from technique to technology and is now successfully employed in different areas of biotechnology. Tissue culture provides large platform for enhancing knowledge in different disciplines and give opportunities for quality research, innovation and employment.