Tissue Culture Flashcards
What is tissue culture?
Tissue culture is cell growth outside of an organism in or on a sterile nutrient growth medium.
Give two examples of tissue culture.
Cancer research.
Micro-propagation.
Describe tissue cultures role in cancer research.
Antibodies are defence proteins which attach to an antigen.
Tissue culture allows for the production of monoclonal antibodies.
Monoclonal antibodies attach to antigens which are on the surface of cancer cells and change colour.
Therefore monoclonal antibodies can indicate whether a tumour is cancerous.
Describe briefly what micro propagation is.
Micro propagation is a form of tissue culture where a lot of plants are produced using a small piece of plant.
It is referred to as in-vitro growth as it takes place outside of the plant and in a sterile nutrient growth medium.
Describe in detail the process of micro propagation.
A small piece of disease free stem is cut off of the plant, it should contain the apical meristem.
The apical meristem is the region of the plant where cells are constantly dividing by mitosis to allow for growth to occur.
The small sample is placed in sterile nutrient agar in a small glass test tube and a mass of undifferentiated cells called a callus is formed.
Nutrients are supplied like glucose as the cell can not carry out photosynthesis, agar supplies water glucose vitamins and minerals.
Plant growth regulators present in the gel like auxins allow for root and shoot growth.
PH and temperature are at their optimum.
Exposure to light is essential for proper development of the shoot.
The callus then develops into a plant embryo which then develops into a young immature plant called a plant let.
This established plant is transplanted into the soil.
What are the advantages of micro propagation.
As the plants are genetically identical, this allows for the conservation of rare species of plant.
It allows for many plants to be produced at one time.
What are the disadvantages of micro propagation?
It is expensive and requires specialised skill and staff must be trained.
If one plant produced has a disease then all the plants are susceptible to that disease as they are genetically identical.
