Question

Plant cells are totipotent. Why?

Answer 1

Hint: Stem cells are those cells that have self differentiation and self renewal property. A totipotent cell can be defined as a cell that can give rise to any kind of cell of the body.

Step by step answer:
Plant cells can reproduce vegetatively. From a bunch of plant cells, any part of the plant body can be developed. For example, from a root cell a whole tree can be developed – it means from root cells, cells of the stem, leaves can be formed of a plant. So, plant cells are totipotent.
Additional information:
The potency of a cell can be defined as the ability of a particular stem cell to generate numerous differentiated cells.
-Totipotent stem cells are those cells that are capable of forming every cell in the embryo, and in addition, the trophoblast cells, the foetal portion of the placenta.
-Pluripotent stem cells are those cells that have the ability to become all the cell types of the embryo except the trophoblast cells. For example the ICM of the mammalian blastocyst.
-Multipotent stem cells can be defined as those stem cells whose commitment is restricted to a relatively small subset of all the probable cells of the body. These are usually called adult stem cells.
-Unipotent stem cells are found in particular tissues and can be defined as those cells which are involved in regenerating a particular type of cell. Spermatogonia, for instance, are stem cells that give rise only to sperm.

Note: There is another type of cell called the progenitor cells that are not capable of unlimited self-renewal; they only have the capacity to divide a few times before differentiating. They are sometimes called transit-amplifying cells. Both unipotent stem cells and progenitor cells have been called lineage-controlled cells.