Question

The concept of totipotency means that:
(a)Every living plant cell should be able to regenerate a whole plant
(b)Plants can communicate among one another
(c)Every plant feels pain
(d)Any plant is potent enough to grow in the vicinity of other plants

Answer 1

Hint: Totipotency is generally seen in germ cells and meristematic cells of plants. Haberlandt, a German botanist, in 1902 had first given the concept of cellular totipotency in the plant. He said that all living cells present in the plant body are able to reform the whole plant body.

Complete Answer:
Totipotency is the capacity of a single cell to divide and form all of the differentiated cells in an organism. Hence a living totipotent cell can divide and form an entire plant.

Additional information:Totipotency is the genetic ability of a plant cell to produce the entire plant. In other words, totipotency is the cell feature within which the cell has the power for forming all the cell types within the adult organism. Totipotency was first described by Steward and Reinert in the fifties. Professor F. C. Steward discovered and designed the foundation for plant tissue culture, genetic engineering, and biotechnology of food crops or trees. The basis of tissue culture is to cultivate a large number of cells in a sterile controlled environ­ment with help of the totipotent nature of the cells.

So, the correct answer is “Every living plant cell should be able to regenerate a whole plant”.

Note: Pluripotency is the capacity of a cell to progress into the three primary germ cell layers of the early embryo and hence into all the types of cells of the adult body. It does not include extra-embryonic tissues such as the placenta. Embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells are characterized by their pluripotency. The distinction between totipotent and pluripotent cells is that totipotent cells can give rise to both the placenta and the embryo and hence pluripotent cells are sort of totipotent cells.