Plant tissue culture

Plant tissue culture is a collection of techniques used to maintain or grow plant cells, tissues, or organs under sterile conditions on a nutrient culture medium of known composition. It is widely used to produce clones of a plant in a method known as micropropagation. Different techniques in plant tissue culture may offer certain advantages over traditional methods of propagation, including:

In vitro tissue culture of potato explants
Plant tissue cultures being grown at a USDA seed bank, the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation.
  • The production of exact copies of plants that produce particularly good flowers, fruits, or other desirable traits.
  • To quickly produce mature plants.
  • To produce a large number of plants in a reduced space.
  • 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.
  • The production of plants in sterile containers allows them to be moved with greatly reduced chances of transmitting diseases, pests, and pathogens.
  • The production of plants from seeds that otherwise have very low chances of germinating and growing, e.g., 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.
  • Reproduce recalcitrant plants required for land restoration
  • Storage of genetic plant material to safeguard native plant species.

Plant tissue culture relies on the fact that many plant parts have the ability to regenerate into a whole plant (cells of those regenerative plant parts are called totipotent cells which can differentiate into various specialized cells). Single cells, plant cells without cell walls (protoplasts), pieces of leaves, stems or roots can often be used to generate a new plant on culture media given the required nutrients and plant hormones.