Applications of Plant Cell and Tissue Culture

Applications of Plant Cell and Tissue Culture Chairman: Y. Yamada 1988 Interest in all aspects of plant cell and tissue culture is expanding rapidly as the technologies available improve and the commercial potential of these processes becomes apparent. This book covers basic plant physiology and cytology and extends to the practical exploitation of plants, both as crops per se and as sources of useful compounds produced as secondary metabolites. The reduction of plants to single cells or tissues that can be maintained in culture facilitates their manipulation by the techniques of molecular biology. Genes encoding desirable traits, for example herbicide or pathogan resistance or early flowering, can be introduced into domesticated crops by transformation of normal plant cells using a natural vector such as Agrobacterium, by the uptake of DNA into protoplasts using techniques developed for animal cells, or by direct injection of DNA into intact cells with cell walls. Application of these technologies to forest trees is especially important because the long lifespan of these species makes their improvement by conventional breeding programmes very slow.
Problems of commercial exploitation considered include the storage of genetically engineered material until progeny evaluation has been completed, the stability of traits in culture, and the feasibility of adapting laboratory methods to large-scale production plants. There is also some discussion of the sociolegal aspects of genetic engineering of crop plants, and of the difficulties of marketing natural' compounds produced by cells under artificial conditions. Related Ciba Foundation Symposia: No 97 Better crops for food Chairman: E. A. Bell 1983 ISBN 0 272 79729 4 No 133 Plant resistance to viruses Chairman: B. D. Harris 1987 ISBN 0 471 91263 8