Plant Tissue Culture Manual

This manual comprises a range of techniques for research workers in the fields of cell and molecular biology, physiology, plant breeding and propagation, and genetic engineering.

Plant tissue culture has a long history, dating back to the work of Gottlieb Haberlandt and others at the end of the 19th century, but the associated concepts and techniques have reached a level of usefulness and application which has never been greater. The technical innovations have given new insights into fundamental aspects of plant differentiation and development, and have paved the way to the identification of strategies for the genetic manipula tion of plants. It is the aim of this manual to deliver a broad range of these techniques in a form which is accessible to students and research scientists of diverse backgrounds, including those with little or no previous experience. The themes of the manual aim to reflect those research areas which have been advanced by tissue culture technology. As was the case for the sister volume Plant Molecular Biology Manual, the objective has been from the start to produce a manual which is at home on the laboratory bench. The plastic-covered, ring-bound format has proved to be most popular and is retained here. Equally, the emphasis has been on producing a collection of detailed step-by-step protocols, each supplemented with an introductory text and practical footnotes, to provide the next best thing to a supervisor at one's shoulder.

This manual comprises a broad range of techniques of value to research workers in the fields of cell and molecular biology, physiology, plant breeding and propagation, and genetic engineering.

The techniques of plant organ, tissue, and cell culture concentrated on reproducibility, simplicity and accu are now established in many research laboratories racy with sufficient illustration to make all mani throughout the world and are being used in numerous pulations clear. areas of plant science. Methods have been developed The drawings of items used in the bench layout to propagate plants and free them from viruses using diagrams are symbolic and are 'keyed in' by number to shoot tip culture. The regeneration of plants from callus the list of materials and equipment. A line around an culture has also proved useful commercially. Elegant item indicates that is sterile. techniques have been used to synthesise somatic The adoption of an integrated text in which diagrams hybrids by the fusion of protoplasts and to transform are related spatially to the methods will, we hope, help cells. These and many other techniques have been the student to grasp the techniques quickly and effec and can be used to investigate a variety of botanical tively. This is first and foremost a manual which has its phenomena as well as to improve crop plants and now place on the laboratory bench open in front of the provide an important part of the basic experimental student, a book to be used! skills required by a majority of experimental botanists.