Recent Advances in Plant Tissue Culture and Applications

Plant tissue culture refers to the sterile, in vitro cultivation of plant parts stem node, shoottip & root such as organs, embryos, and seeds, as well as single cells on either solidified or liquid nutrient media.These cells have the ability to divide and differentiate into a whole plant.The first experiments, though unsuccessful, were initiated in 1902 to culture plants through in vitro propagation.The first true plant tissue cultures were successfully conducted in 1939 when undifferentiated tissues of carrot were continuously cultured for prolonged periods.Plant tissue culture offers many practical benefits.Scientists are able to promote the mass propagation of desirable plants through in vitro cultivation.Plants usually propagated by seed can now be cultured in vitro to yield thousands of identical plants; a number of agronomically important plants, such as the oil palm in the tropics, have been successfully propagated by large-scale cloning.Specific characteristics such as disease and herbicide resistance also can be selected for while plants are in culture..Regenerating flowering plants in culture offers an additional advantage: there are no viruses in cells of meristematic regions -regions of plant tissue made up of cells that divide to give rise to the tissues and organs of flowering plants.