Investigate and list the advantages and disadvantages of tissue culture. Why is it not so common among animals as it is in plants?
Answers
Tissue culture is the growth of tissues or cells in an artificial medium separate from the organism. This is typically facilitated via use of a liquid, semi-solid, or solid growth medium, such as broth or agar. Tissue culture commonly refers to the culture of animal cells and tissues, with the more specific term plant tissue culture being used for plants. The term "tissue culture" was coined by American pathologist Montrose Thomas Burrows.[
Tissue culture is to grow whole plant from isolated cell in vessels using artificial media.
Explanation: The in vitro techniques were developed initially to demonstrate the totipotency of plant cells predicted by Haberlandt in 1902. Totipotency is the ability of plant cells to perform all the functions of development which are characteristic of zygotes.
Advantages of Tissue Culture
1. Mutant selection which may be direct or indirect.
2. Industrial use for production of native plants constitute and bioplants formation of externally supplied chemical compounds.
3. In pharmaceuticals e.g. HGH
4. Isolation of variants without cell selection.
5. Rapid seed viability.
6. Obtaining rare hybrids.
7. Rapid seed viability test.
8. Improved plants in tobacco, potato, sugarcane and tomato.
9. That are commercially used for several years have been obtained.
Disadvantages of Tissue culture
1. Many changes are undesirable.
2. The characters of interest may not change.
3. Some changes are unstable and not carried to next generation.
4. It is not predictable as to which change will develop under a certain set of condition as the growth requirement differ for different plant sp. and also for different explants of same plant.
Tissue culture is very common in Plants because it is used in crop improvement but in animal cell this technique is used to manufacture viral vaccines.