Question

A certain tissue of a plant infected with TMV was used to obtain a new plant using tissue culture technique. Identify the technique used and reason the possibility of obtaining a new healthy plant.

Answer 1

Hint: Plant tissue culture is a technique which is used to grow plant cells, tissues or organs in a nutrient culture medium under aseptic condition. The plant part used is called the explants. It is used to produce mature plants.

Complete Answer:
- Plant tissue culture is a method in which the new plant grows from a cell (explants) in a test tube inside a laboratory. This capacity of a plant to regenerate into a new plant is called totipotency. The cells which are used in tissue culture are the stem cells. They have the capacity to differentiate into a tissue, organ or whole plant.
- In the plant, the meristem serves as stem cells. They are found in meristematic tissues. They are located in the root apical meristem, shoot apical meristem and vascular system.
- According to the question, the plant infected with TMV was used to obtain a new plant using tissue culture. In this process the meristem is taken as explanations. The meristems or the stem cells have the ability to create differentiated cell types. They can also self-renew. These cells never age. This property is used to regenerate an entire plant.
- Thus the plants obtained from the tissue culture will be healthy as the explants used are capable of self-renewing themselves and are unaffected by any kind of infections.

Note: The stem cells or the totipotent cells have regenerative power that aids in plant growth and production of new cells throughout the lifetime. The stem cells also have the property to regenerate after injury.