Plant Tissue Culture: 7 Things to Know About Plant Tissue Culture

This article throws light upon the seven important things you must know about plant tissue culture.

The seven things to know about are: (1) Plasticity and Totipotency (2) The Culture Environment (3) Plant Cell Culture Media (4) Plant Growth Regulators in Plant Tissue Culture (5) Culture Types (6) Plant Regeneration and (7) Integration of Plant Tissue Culture into Plant Transformation Protocols.

Plant Tissue Culture:

Most methods of plant transformation applied to crops require that a whole plant is regenerated from isolated plant cell or tissue which has been genetically transformed. This regeneration is con­ducted in vitro so that the environment and growth medium can be manipulated to ensure a high frequency of regeneration. In addition to a high frequency of regeneration, the re-generable cells must be accessible to gene transfer by whatever technique is chosen.

The primary aim is, therefore, to produce, as easily and as quickly as possible, a large number of re-generable cells that are accessi­ble to gene transfer. The subsequent regeneration step is often the most difficult step in plant trans­formation studies. However, it is important to remember that a high frequency of regeneration does not necessarily correlate with high transformation efficiency.

Practically any plant transformation experiment relies at some point on tissue culture. There are some exceptions to this generalisation, but the ability to regenerate plants from isolated cells or tissues in vitro underpin most plant transformation systems.

Thing # 1. Plasticity and Totipotency:

Two concepts, plasticity and totipotency, are central to understanding plant cell culture and regeneration. Plants, due to their sessile nature and long life span, have developed a greater ability to endure extreme conditions and predation than animals have. Many of the processes involved in plant growth and development adapt to environmental conditions. This plasticity allows plants to alter their metabolism; growth and development to best suit their environment.

Particularly important aspects of this adaptation, as far as plant tissue culture and regeneration are concerned, are the abilities to initiate cell division from almost any tissue of the plant and to regenerate lost organs or undergo different developmental pathways in response to particular stimuli. When plant cells and tissues are cultured in vitro they generally exhibit a very high degree of plasticity, which allows one type of tissue or organ to be initiated from another type. In this way, whole plants can be subsequently regenerated.

This regeneration of whole organisms depends upon the concept that all plant cells can, given the correct stimuli, express the total genetic potential of the parent plant. This maintenance of genetic potential is called ‘totipotency’. Plant cell culture and regeneration do, in fact, provide the most compelling evidence for totipotency. In practical terms though, identifying the culture conditions and stimuli required to manifest this totipotency can be extremely difficult and it is still a largely empirical process.

Thing # 2. The Culture Environment:

When cultured in vitro, all the needs, both chemical (see Table 11.1) and physical, of the plant cells have to met by the culture vessel, the growth medium and the external environment (light, temperature, etc.). The growth medium has to supply all the essential mineral ions required for growth and development.

In many cases (as the biosynthetic capability of cells cultured in vitro may not replicate that of the parent plant), it must also supply additional organic supplements such as amino acids and vitamins. Many plant cell cultures, as they are not photosynthetic, also require the addition of a fixed carbon source in the form of a sugar (most often sucrose).

One other vital component that must also be supplied is water, the principal biological solvent. Physical factors, such as temperature, pH, the gaseous environment, light (quality and duration) and osmotic pressure, also have to be maintained within acceptable limits.

Thing # 3. Plant Cell Culture Media:

Culture media used for the in vitro cultivation of plant cells are composed of three basic components:

1. Essential elements, or mineral ions, supplied as a complex mixture of salts;

2. An organic supplement supplying vitamins and/or amino acids; and

3. A source of fixed carbon; usually supplied as the sugar sucrose.

These elements have to be supplied by the culture medium in order to support the growth of healthy cultures in vitro.

For practical purposes, the essential elements are further divided into the following categories:

1. Macroelements (or macronutrients);

2. Microelements (or micronutrients); and

3. An iron source.

Complete plant cell culture medium is usually made by combining several different compo­nents, as outlined in Table 11.2. The table represents one of the most common plant culture media called Murashige and Skoog.

Many other commonly used plant culture media (such as Gamborg’s B5 and Schenk and Hildebrandt (SH) medium) are similar in composition to MS medium and can be thought of as ‘high-salt’ media. MS is an extremely widely used medium and forms the basis for many other media formulations.

Media Components:

It is useful to briefly consider some of the individual components of the stock solutions.

1. Macro -elements:

As is implied by the name, the stock solution supplies those elements required in large amounts for plant growth and development. Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium and sulphur (and carbon, which is added separately) are usually regarded as macroelements. These elements usually comprise at least 0.1% of the dry weight of plants.

Nitrogen is most commonly supplied as a mixture of nitrate ions (from the KNO₃) and ammonium ions (from the NH₄NO₃). Theoretically, there is an advantage in supplying nitrogen in the form of ammonium ions, as nitrogen must be in the reduced form to be incorporated into macromolecules. Nitrate ions, therefore, need to be reduced before incorporation. However, at high concentrations, ammonium ions can be toxic to plant cell cultures and uptake of ammonium ions from the medium cause’s acidification of the medium.

In order to use ammonium ions as the sole nitrogen source, the medium needs to be buffered. High concentrations of ammonium ions can also cause culture problems by increasing the frequency of verification (the culture appears pale and ‘glassy’ and is usually unsuitable for further culture).

Using a mixture of nitrate and ammonium ions has the advantage of weakly buffering the medium as the uptake of nitrate ions causes OH^– ions to be excreted. Phosphorus is usually supplied as the phosphate ion of ammonium, sodium or potassium salts. High concentrations of phosphate can lead to the precipitation of medium elements as insoluble phosphates.

2. Microelements:

These elements are required in trace amounts for plant growth and development, and have many and diverse roles. Manganese, iodine, copper, cobalt, boron, molybdenum, iron and zinc usually comprise the microelements, although other elements such as nickel and aluminium are frequently found in some formulations.

Iron is usually added as iron sulphate, although iron citrate can also be used. Kthylenediamine tetra-acetic acid (EDTA) is usually used in conjunction with the iron sulphate. The EDTA com­plexes with the iron so as to allow the slow and continuous release of iron into the medium. Un-complexed iron can precipitate out of the medium as ferric oxide.

3. Organic Supplements:

Only two vitamins, thiamine (vitamin B₁) and myoinositol (considered a B vitamin) are considered essential for the culture of plant cells in vitro. However, other vitamins are often added to plant cell culture media for historical reasons. Amino acids are also commonly included in the organic supplement.

The most frequently used is glycine (arginine, asparagine, aspartic acid, alanine, glutamic acid, glutamine and proline are also used), but in many cases its inclusion is not essential. Amino acids provide a source of reduced nitrogen and, like ammonium ions, uptake causes acidification of the medium. Casein hydrolysate can be used as a relatively cheap source of a mix of amino acids.

4. Carbon Source:

Sucrose is cheap, easily available, readily assimilated and relatively stable and is, therefore, the most commonly used carbon source. Other carbohydrates (such as glucose, maltose, galactose and sorbitol) can also be used, and in specialised circumstances may prove superior to sucrose.

5. Gelling Agents:

Media for plant cell culture in vitro can be used in either liquid or ‘solid’ forms, depending on the type of culture being grown. For any culture types that require the plant cells or tissues to be grown on the surface of the medium, it must be solidified (more correctly termed ‘gelled’). Agar, produced from seaweed, is the most common type of gelling agent, and is ideal for routine applications.

However, because it is a natural product, the agar quality can vary from supplier to supplier and from batch to batch. For more demanding applications, a range of purer (and in some cases, considerably more expensive) gelling agents are available.

Purified agar or agarose can be used, as can a variety of gellan gums. These components, then, are the basic ‘chemical’ necessities for plant cell culture media. However, other additions are made in order to manipulate the pattern of growth and development of the plant cell culture.

Thing # 4. Plant Growth Regulators in Plant Tissue Culture:

We have already briefly considered the concepts of plasticity and totipotency. The essential point as far as plant cell culture is concerned is that, due to this plasticity and totipotency, specific media manipulations can be used to direct the development of plant cells in culture.

Plant growth regulators are the critical media components in determining the developmental pathway of the plant cells. The plant growth regulators used most commonly are plant hormones or their synthetic analogues. Generalisations about plant growth regulators and their use in plant cell culture media have been developed from initial observations made in the 1950s.

There is, however, some considerable difficulty in predicting the effects of plant growth regulators: this is because of the great differences in culture response between species, cultivars and even plants of the same cultivar grown under different conditions.

However, some principles do hold true and have become the paradigm on which most plant tissue culture regimes are based. Auxins and cytokinins are the most widely used plant growth regulators in plant tissue culture and are usually used together, the ratio of the auxin to the cytokinin determining the type of culture established or regenerated (see Fig. 11.1). A high auxin to cytokinin ratio generally favours root formation, whereas a high cytokinin to auxin ratio favours shoot formation. An intermediate ratio favours callus production.

Thing # 5. Culture Types:

Cultures are generally initiated from sterile pieces of a whole plant. These pieces are termed ‘explants’, and may consist of pieces of organs, such as leaves or roots, or may be specific cell type, such as pollen or endosperm. Many features of the explant are known to affect the efficiency of culture initiation. Generally, younger, more rapidly growing tissue (or tissue at an early stage of development) is most effective.

Several different culture types most commonly used in plant transformation studies will now be examined in more detail:

1. Callus,

2. Cell-suspension Cultures,

3. Protoplasts,

4. Root Cultures,

5. Shoot Tip and Meristem Culture,

6. Embryo Culture, and

7. Microspore Culture.

1. Callus:

Explants, when cultured on the appropriate medium, usually with both an auxin and a cytokinin, can give rise to an unorganized, growing and dividing mass of cells. It is thought that any plant tissue can be used as an explant, if the correct conditions are found. In culture, this proliferation can be maintained more or less indefinitely, provided that the callus is sub-cultured on to fresh medium periodically.

During callus formation there is some degree of dedifferentiation (i.e., the changes that occur during development and specialization are, to some extent, reversed), both in morphology callus is usually composed of un-specialised parenchyma cells) and metabolism. One major consequence of this dedifferentiation is that most plant cultures lose the ability to photosynthesize.

This has important consequences for the culture of callus tissue, as the metabolic profile will probably not match that of the donor plant. This necessitates the addition of other components—such as vitamins and, most importantly, a carbon source to the culture medium, in addition to the usual mineral nutrients. Callus culture is often performed in the dark (the lack of photosynthetic capability being no drawback) as light can encourage differentiation of the callus.

During long-term culture, the culture may lose the requirement for auxin and/or cytokinin. This process, known as ‘habituation’, is common in callus cultures from some plant species (such as sugar beet). Callus cultures are extremely important in plant biotechnology.

Manipulation of the auxin to cytokinin ratio in the medium can lead to the development of shoots, roots or somatic embryos from which whole plants can subsequently be produced. Callus cultures can also be used to initiate cell suspensions, which are used in a variety of ways in plant transformation studies.

2. Cell-Suspension Cultures:

Callus cultures, broadly speaking, fall into one of two categories: compact or friable. In compact callus the cells are densely aggregated, whereas in friable callus the cells are only loosely associated with each other and the callus become soft and breaks apart easily. Friable callus provides the inoculum to form cell-suspension cultures.

Explants from some plant species or particular cell types tend not to form friable callus, making cell-suspension initiation a difficult task. The friability of callus can sometimes be improved by manipulating the medium components or by repeated sub-culturing. The friability of the callus can also sometimes be improved by culturing it on ‘semi-solid’ medium (medium with a low concentration of gelling agent).

When friable callus is placed into a liquid medium (usually the same composition as the solid medium used for the callus culture) and then agitated, single cells and/or small clumps of cells are released into the medium. Under the correct conditions, these released cells continue to grow and divide, eventually producing a cell suspension culture.

A relatively large inoculum should be used when initiating cell suspensions so that the released cell numbers build up quickly. The inoculum should not be too large though, as toxic products released from damaged or stressed cells can build up to lethal levels. Large cell clumps can be removed during subculture of the cell suspension.

Cell suspensions can be maintained relatively simply as batch cultures in conical flasks. They are continually cultured by repeated sub-culturing into fresh medium. This results in dilution of the suspension and the initiation of another batch growth cycle.

The degree of dilution during subculture should be determined empirically for each culture. Too great a degree of dilution will result in a greatly extended lag period or, in extreme cases, death of the transferred cells. After subculture, the cells divide and the biomass of the culture increases in a characteristic fashion, until nutrients in the medium are exhausted and/or toxic by-products build up to inhibitory levels—this is called the ‘stationary phase’.

If cells are left in the stationary phase for too long, they will die and the culture will be lost. Therefore, cells should be transferred as they enter the stationary phase. It is, therefore, important that the batch growth-cycle parameters are determined for each cell-suspension culture.

3. Protoplasts:

Protoplasts are plant cells with the cell wall removed. Protoplasts are most commonly isolated from either leaf mesophyll cells or cell suspensions, although other sources can be used to advantage. Two general approaches to removing the cell wall (a difficult task without damaging the protoplast) can be taken—mechanical or enzymatic isolation.

Mechanical isolation, although possible, often results in low yields, poor quality and poor performance in culture due to substances released from damaged cells.Enzymatic isolation is usually carried out in a simple salt solution with a high osmoticum, plus the cell wall degrading enzymes. It is usual to use a mix of both cellulase and pectinase enzymes, which must be of high quality and purity.

Protoplasts are fragile and easily damaged, and therefore, must be cultured carefully. Liquid medium is not agitated and a high osmotic potential is maintained, at least in the initial stages. The liquid medium must be shallow enough to allow aeration in the absence of agitation.

Protoplasts can be plated out on to solid medium and callus produced. Whole plants can be regenerated by organogenesis or somatic embryogenesis from this callus. Protoplasts are ideal targets for transformation by a variety of means.

4. Root Cultures:

Root cultures can be established in vitro from explants of the root tip of either primary or lateral roots and can be cultured on fairly simple media. The growth of roots in vitro is potentially unlimited, as roots are indeterminate organs. Although the establishment of root cultures was one of the first achievements of modern plant tissue culture, they are not widely used in plant transformation studies.

5. Shoot Tip and Meristem Culture:

The tips of shoots (which contain the shoot apical meristem) can be cultured in vitro, producing clumps of shoots from either axillary or adventitious buds. This method can be used for clonal propagation. Shoot meristem cultures are potential alternatives to the more commonly used methods for cereal regeneration as they are less genotype-dependent and more efficient (seedlings can be used as donor material).

6. Embryo Culture:

Embryos can be used as explants to generate callus cultures or somatic embryos. Both immature and mature embryos can be used as explants. Immature, embryo-derived embryo genic callus is the most popular method of monocot plant regeneration.

7. Microspore Culture:

Haploid tissue can be cultured in vitro by using pollen or anthers as an explant. Pollen contains the male gametophyte, which is termed the ‘microspore’. Both callus and embryos can be produced from pollen. Two main approaches can be taken to produce in vitro cultures from haploid tissue. The first method depends on using the anther as the explant.

Anthers (somatic tissue that surrounds and contains the pollen) can be cultured on solid medium (agar should not be used to solidify the medium as it contains inhibitory substances). Pollen-derived embryos are subsequently produced via dehiscence of the mature anthers. The dehiscence of the anther depends both on its isolation at the correct stage and on the correct culture conditions.

In some species, the reliance on natural dehiscence can be circumvented by cutting the wall of the anther, although this does, of course, take a considerable amount of time. Anthers can also be cultured in liquid medium, and pollen released from the anthers can be induced to form embryos, although the efficiency of plant regeneration is often very low.

Immature pollen can also be extracted from developing anthers and cultured directly, although this is a very time-consuming process. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. Some beneficial effects to the culture are observed when anthers are used as the explant material.

There is, however, the danger that some of the embryos produced from another culture will originate from the somatic anther tissue rather than the haploid microspore cells. If isolated pollen is used there is no danger of mixed embryo formation, but the efficiency is low and the process is time consuming.

In microspore culture, the condition of the donor plant is of critical importance, as is the timing of isolation. Pretreatments, such as a cold treatment, are often found to increase the efficiency. These pretreatments can be applied before culture, or, in some species, after placing the anthers in culture.

Plant species can be divided into two groups, depending on whether they require the addition of plant growth regulators to the medium for pollen/anther culture; those that do also often require organic supplements, e.g., amino acids. Many of the cereals (rice, wheat, barley and maize) require medium supplemented with plant growth regulators for pollen/anther culture.

Regeneration from microspore explants can be obtained by direct embryogenesis, or via a callus stage and subsequent embryogenesis. Haploid tissue cultures can also be initiated from the female gametophyte (the ovule). In some cases, this is a more efficient method than using pollen or anthers. The ploidy of the plants obtained from haploid cultures may not be haploid.

This can be a consequence of chromosome doubling during the culture period. Chromosome doubling (which often has to be induced by treatment with chemicals such as colchicine) may be an advantage, as n many cases haploid plants are not the desired outcome of regeneration from haploid tissues. Such plants are often referred to as ‘di-haploids’, because they contain two copies of the same haploid genome.

Thing # 6. Plant Regeneration:

Having looked at the main types of plant culture that can be established in vitro; we can now look at how whole plants can be regenerated from these cultures.

In broad terms, two methods of plant regeneration are widely used in plant transformation studies, i.e., somatic embryogenesis and organogenesis:

1. Somatic Embryogenesis, and

2. Organogenesis.

1. Somatic Embryogenesis:

In somatic (asexual) embryogenesis, embryo like struc­tures, which can develop into whole plants in a way analogous to zygotic embryos, are formed from so­matic tissues (Fig. 11.2). These somatic embryos can be produced either directly or indirectly.

In direct somatic embryogenesis, the embryo is formed directly from a cell or small group of cells without the production of an intervening callus. Though common from some tissues (usually reproductive tissues such as the nucellus, styles or pollen), direct somatic embryogenesis is generally rare in comparison with indirect somatic embryo genesis.

An example of direct somatic embryogenesis is explained in figure. In indirect somatic embryogenesis, callus is first produced from the explant. Embryos can then be produced from the callus tissue or from a cell suspension produced from that callus. Somatic embryo-genesis from carrot is the classical example of indirect somatic embryogen­esis.

Somatic embryogenesis usually proceeds in two distinct stages (Fig. 11.3). In the initial stage (embryo initiation), a high concentra­tion of 2, 4-D is used. In the second stage (embryo production) embryos are produced in a medium with no or yen low levels of 2, 4-D.

Cereal Regeneration via Somatic Embryogenesis from Immature or Mature Embryos:

The principal method adopted for the tissue culture and regeneration of a wide range of cereal species is somatic embryogenesis, using cultures initiated from immature zygotic embryos. Embryo genic callus is normally initiated by placing the immature embryo on to a medium containing 2, 4-D.

Shoot regeneration is initiated by placing the embryo genic callus on a medium with BAP (with or without 2, 4-D). These shoots can be subsequently rooted. The medium used for induction of embryo genic callus is usually a modified MS (for Triticeae) or N6 (for rice and maize).

Maltose is often used as the carbon source in preference to sucrose, and additional organic supplements such as specific amino acids, yeast extract and/or casein hydrolysate) are common. The isolation and culture of immature embryos is, however, a labour-intensive and relatively expensive procedure.

An additional problem is the small target size if the immature embryos are to used for biolistic transformation. Alternatives are, therefore, being sought. One alternative is to use mature embryos (or seeds) as the explant to initiate embryo genic callus. This approach has been successfully applied to several cereal species such as rice and oats. The culture techniques and media used for culture establishment and regeneration from mature embryo/seed-derived cultures are fundamentally the same as those used for cultures initiated from immature embryos.

The Importance of Genotype:

The major influence on tissue-culture response appears to be genetic, with culture requirements varying between species and cultivars. Model genotypes that responded well to culture in vitro were initially used in plant transformation studies. However, most of the model genotypes used were not elite, commercial cultivars. The commercial cultivars tended to respond poorly to culture in vitro.

One of the main aims is, therefore, to identify the components that make up a widely applicable, optimal culture regime. Many factors have been investigated for their ability to improve the culture response from elite cultivars, including media components (such as alternative carbon sources, macro and microelement concentrations and composition), media preparation method and donor plant condition and growth condition.

2. Organogenesis:

Somatic embryogenesis relies on plant regeneration through a process analogous to zygotic embryo germination. Organogenesis relies on the production of organs, either directly from an explant or from a callus culture. There are three methods of plant regeneration via organogenesis. The first two methods depend on adventitious organs arising either from a callus culture or directly from an explant (Fig. 11.4).

Alternatively, axillary bud formation and growth can also be used to regenerate whole plants from some types of tissue culture. Organogenesis relies on the inherent plasticity of plant tissues, and is regulated by altering the components of the medium.

In particular, it is the auxin to cytokinin ratio of the medium that determines which developmental pathway the regenerating tissue will take. It is usual to induce shoot formation by increasing the cytokinin to auxin ratio of the culture medium. These shoots can then be rooted relatively simply.

Thing # 7. Integration of Plant Tissue Culture into Plant Transformation Protocols:

Various methods of plant regeneration are available to the plant biotechnologist. Some plant species may be amenable to regeneration by a variety of methods, but some may only be regenerated by one method. Although there are various methods that can be used to transform plants, but here we will be briefly considering the interaction of plant regeneration methodology and transformation methodology only (Fig. 11.4).

Not all plant tissue is suited to every plant transformation method, and not all plant species can be regenerated by every method. There is, therefore, a need to find both a suitable plant tissue culture/regeneration regime and a compatible plant transformation methodology. Tissue culture and plant regeneration are an integral part of most plant transformation strate­gies, and can often prove to be the most challenging aspect of a plant transformation protocol.

Key to success in integrating plant tissue culture into plant transformation strategies is the realisation that a quick (to avoid too many deleterious effects from somaclonal variation) and efficient regeneration system must be developed. However, this system must also allow high transformation efficiencies from whichever transformation technique is adopted.

Not all regeneration protocols are compatible with all transformation techniques. Some crops may be amenable to a variety of regeneration and transformation strategies, others may currently only be amenable to one particular protocol. Advances are being made all the time, so it is impossible to say that a particular crop will never be regenerated by a particular protocol.

However, some protocols, at least at the moment, are clearly more efficient than others. Regeneration from immature embryo-derived somatic embryos is, for example, the favoured method for regenerating monocot species.

General rules are sometimes difficult to make because of the variability of response to particular protocols of different plant species or even cultivars. However, plant tissue culture has been successfully integrated into plant transformation strategies and the list of plant species that can be routinely transformed continues to grow.