Plant Tissue Culture

• collection of techniques used to maintain or grow plant cells, tissues, or organs under sterile conditions

• mostly used to produce clones

Plant Cloning

• Making an exact replica (same DNA) from the same plant– Ex: cuttings, strawberry runners

Tissue Culture Propagation

Gene Transfer

• Transferring of foreign genes into an organism

Two Methods:1. Agrobacterium tumefaciens2. Gene Gun

• Both methods are fairly random so scientists need to screen for the foreign genes in the plant cell

Gene Transfer• Agrobacterium tumefaciens

– Plant pathogen– Has plasmid DNA containing

tumor-inducing genes (T-DNA) and additional genes that help T-DNA integrate itself into the host cell’s genome

– Must first be “disarmed by removing most of the T-DNA (only leaving the left and right border sequences). These help integrate a foreign gene into the genome of cultured plant cells

Gene Transfer

• Gene Gun– fires gold particles

carrying the foreign DNA into plant cells

– Some particles pass through the plant cell wall and enter the cell nucleus, where the transgene integrates itself into the plant chromosome