Plant tissue culture Medium

Plant tissue culture medium from Rinkesh Joshi

Polyamines, Gelling Agents in Tissue Culture, Micropropagation of Medicinal Plants and Bioreactors

Currently, tissue cultures of species of agricultural importance have wide applicability in industrial production processes. Tissue culture is a name given to a set of techniques that allow the regeneration of cells, tissues and organs of plants, from segments of plant organs or tissues, using nutrient solutions in aseptic and controlled environment. This regeneration is based on the totipotency of plant cells. Totipotency is a capability indicating that plant cells, in different times, may express the potential to form a new multicellular individual. Tissue culture appears to be a good alternative to conventional propagation, requiring less physical space, with high multiplication rate, without incidence of pests and diseases during cultivation, and enabling higher control of the variables involved. Thus, in the in vitro environment, with the required stimuli and appropriate conditions, different cell types express different behaviors, possibly leading to cell multiplication and differentiation into a specific tissue, characterized by a form and a function, which may lead to the regeneration of a new individual.

The discovery of this feature in plant cells is indistinguishable from the first studies on tissue culture in the early twentieth century by Heberlandt in 1902, which were followed by

Plant Tissue Culture Media

Optimal growth and morphogenesis of tissues may vary for different plants according to their nutritional requirements. Moreover, tissues from different parts of plants may also have different requirements for satisfactory growth [1]. Tissue culture media were first developed from nutrient solutions used for culturing whole plants e.g. root culture medium of White and callus culture medium of Gautheret. White’s medium was based on Uspenski and Uspenska’s medium for algae, Gautheret’s medium was based on Knop’s salt solution [2]. Basic media that are frequently used include Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium [1], Linsmaier and Skoog (LS) medium [3], Gamborg (B5) medium [4] and Nitsch and Nitsch (NN) medium [5]

Media Composition

Tragacanth, a Novel and Cheap Gelling Agent in Carnation and Miniature Rose Tissue Culture Media

During the last three decades, there have been increased efforts to explore suitable substitutes for agar namely, carrageenan (Lines, 1977), alginates (Scheurich et al., 1980), ficol (Kao, 1981), gelrite (Pasqualetto et al., 1988), starch (Henderson and Kinnersley, 1988; Nene et al., 1996), isubgol (Babbar and Jain, 1998), and katira gum (Jain and Babbar, 2002). Consequently, a number of substances have been used with reasonable success as a substitute for agar. These agents are not expected to reach universal acceptance due to various reasons. Starch, the cheapest of the gelling agents used, is not expected to find universal acceptance because of its inferior gelling ability and poor clarity than agar; and it metabolizes too readily (Kuria et al., 2008). Carrageenan and alginates gel only in the presence of specific ions, and agarose and ficoll are cost prohibitive (Jain and Babbar, 2002). Gelrite, another gelling agent, though not a perfect replacement for agar, has found wide acceptance for plant tissue culture media (Pasqualetto et al., 1988). Isubgol, a highly cost-effective gelling agent, has all the desirable properties, however, its higher melting point (~70 °C) necessitates adjustments of pH and quick