Question

Describe different steps involved in tissue culture technique.

Answer 1

Hint: Tissue culture is the technique in which a plant is made to grow from a cell or a tissue in vitro, i.e. inside a test tube in a laboratory. Through this technique, the whole plant can be grown from an explant. An explant is that part of the plant which we grow in vitro and which develops in the complete plant.

Complete answer:
To solve the question, we must first know what tissue culture is. Tissue culture is a technique wherein a tissue of the plant is grown in a laboratory in a nutrient rich medium under sterile conditions. The cultured plant part is known as the explant.
This tissue grows up to become a plant. This capacity of a cell/ tissue to generate an entire plant is known as totipotency.
> In tissue culture the explant is made to grow on a nutrient rich medium. It forms a mass called callus. As the callus grows, it consumes the nutrients present in the growth media and so sub-culturing is done where a part of this growing callus is made to grow on a fresh media.
> Auxin and cytokinin are added to the media. Auxin promotes root generation while cytokinin promotes shoot generation.
> When small plantlets grow, these are then transferred to the fields where they grow in their natural environment.

Note: Tissue culture is a crop improvement technique and the method which uses this technique to increase the number of plants is known as micro propagation. The offspring produced by this method are known as somaclones because they are genetically identical to the parent plant. The plants produced through this method are tomato, potato, banana and apple.