TABLE OF CONTENTS Tissue culture is the culture and maintenance of plant cells or organs in sterile, nutritionally and environmentally supportive conditions ( in vitro). It has applications in research and commerce. In commercial settings, tissue culture is often referred to as micropropagation, which is really only one form of a set of techniques. Micropropagation refers to the production of whole plants from cell cultures derived from explants (the initial piece of tissue put into culture) of (usually) meristem cells. The basic principle of tissue culture is the totipotency of cells. A plant cell has all the genetic information for developing into a whole plant. Most of the early tissue culture experiments failed, at least in part, because isolated plant tissues are extremely prone to microbial attack by the inborne microbial population that compete with the plant tissue in the culture medium, without any resistance from the plant tissue. Bacteria, fungi, and other organisms, which can be resisted to some degree by a whole plant, can easily outcompete an isolated fragment of tissue from the plant in the relatively nutrient-rich environment of a culture flask. Therefore, it is necessary to remove competitor organisms from the culture and isolate it in aseptic conditions, most usually in a small flask or test tube. This is usually done by chemical surface sterilization of the explant with an agent such as bleach at a concentration and for a duration that will kill or remove pathogens without injuring the plant cells beyond recovery. The...
