Biotechniques

Tissue Culture (micro-propagation) A method of rapidly cloning desired plants [few weeks]. Plant cells are totipotent (can grow into whole plant) Process is repeated to generate millions of plants from one explant.

Conditions Sterile (avoid fungal and bacterial growth) essential food, mineral and vitamins auxins and cytokinins

Method small explant is cut and sterilised explant placed on nutrient agar medium transferred to growing medium grows into callus (mass of undifferentiated cells) hormones cause cell differentiation  new plants planted out and hardened off

Advantages of tissue culture copy desirable plants virus free explants prone to virus infection (can study effects of infection) cultures subjected to stress – select cells that survive (hardy) for cloning can transfer new genes into cell (with a DNA gun) prior to cloning

Tissue culture Do (tissue culture, 7 min) Do Culture (a bit boring, but not youtube, 7 min, sound and video way out of synch and cut off half way through?) Culture