Tissue Culture

• Tissue culture is the growing of cells or tissue in a nutrient filled liquid or on a solid medium (such as nutrient agar).
• A callus is a clump of undifferentiated cells.
• Humans use tissue cultures to research tissue replacement as well as researching viruses and cancer cells as experiments can be carried out in isolation.
• In plants tissue cells are used to produce rare plants at risk of extinction and to produce clones of GM plants for research.
• Stages of Tissue Culture:

  • Remove pieces of tissue from fast-growing area of plant and sterilise (bleach)
  • Place in a growth medium with nutrients and growth hormones in aseptic conditions
  • Roots and shoots grow so plant in ground

  or

  • Remove cells, sterilise and add to a nutrient medium
  • Callus treated with growth hormones to grow roots and shoots
  • Planted