Sunday, January 30, 2011

Haberlandt ( The father of plant tissue culture )


The father of plant tissue culture is considered to be the German Botanist HABERLANDT who conceived the concept of cell culture in 1902.

"There has been, so far as I know, up to present, no planned attempt to cultivate the vegetative cells of higher plants in suitable nutrients. Yet the results of such attempts should cast many interesting sidelights on the peculiarities and capacities which the cell, as an elementary organism, possesses: they should make possible conclusions as to the interrelations and reciprocal influences to which the cell is subjected within the multicellular organism. Without permitting myself to pose further questions, I believe, in conclusion, that I am not making to bold a prediction if I point to the possibility that, in this way, one could successfully cultivate artificial embryos from vegetative cells".

Haberlandt, 1902.
HABERLANDT, when he embarked upon his attempt to culture plant cells was the first to consider culturing cells aseptically in a nutrient solution.
HABERLANDT did not realise that because photosynthetic cells are relatively differentiated their meristematic potential is not expressed easily and he did not know that this would require stimulating substances ie. plant growth regulators which were unknown at the time. Thus he chose to work with pallisade cells, pith cells, stamen hairs and stomatal guard cells. HABERLANDT cultured these cells in a simple organically enriched medium containing glucose under aseptic conditions and was totally unsucessful in all cases. His cells did not divide but were maintained in a living state for several weeks.

HABERLANDT failed to recognise that the meristematic cells of the plant body are basically heterotrophic and he did not know that the dedifferentiation of a cell into a meristematic state requires the presence of plant growth regulators.

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