Plant Tissue Culture: Beyond Being a Tool for Genetic Engineering

Abstract

Plant tissue culture has been in practice for more than 100 years since its conception by Haberlandt in 1902. The development of widely used media composition by Murashige and Skoog in 1962 forms the backbone of most of the tissue culture protocols. Besides micropropagation of economically important species by large- and small-scale companies worldwide, plant tissue culture is widely used to develop crops with economically important traits by transforming different explants and thereafter regenerating them under optimized culture conditions; it has been widely perceived and used as the workhorse for plant genetic engineering. This fitted the growing Plant Biotechnology arena in the late 1990s where commercial companies tried to develop protocols to deliver commercial traits into economically viable crops. However, plant tissue culture’s untapped potential is getting revealed now during the changing climatic conditions and rising needs of the human population. Not only fulfilling the need to feed, plant tissue culture could also be used to develop a sustainable future under harsh conditions by multiplication of endangered plant species, developing heavy metal scavenging plant populations, replanting eroded lands and forests by tissue culture generated trees, developing viral free plant populations and establishment of ocean farms where one unit could be dedicated to plant tissue culture/hydroponic system. Thus, plant tissue culture has the potential to impact the future of mankind in many ways.