We hear about tissue culture technology everyday in our biologic lives. The first thing that goes on to our mind when we hear tissue culture is certainly the formation of the same plant as the parent. Many developed countries began to advance this technology to be developed in their own country. Often developed countries also take genes from native germplasm from other countries’ plants to develop in their own country. Here we will discuss further whether the development of plant genes of a country in another country is good or not to do. Often tissue culture is an alternative to vegetative breeding because of constraints in the proliferation of generative plants. Common constraints are very little or no seeds produced by generative plants and generative plants do not have endosperm and for example we can see on orchid seeds.
In the invitro , explants were maintained on sterile media both solid and liquid. Then some of the explants experience growth and form callus (parts of cells that have not differentiated). In callus formation is influenced by the selection of explants, explants taken can be taken from shoots, tubers, stem ends, leaves, roots and especially from the young parts of the meristem such as young leaves, root tips and stems, keeping seeds, and so on.
Tissue Culture Technology
After seeing a brief explanation of the in vitro technique above, the stages in tissue culture can be explained in detail. What are the stages in implementing tissue culture? First, Making media, finished media is placed on a test tube or glass bottles. There are 2 kinds of media used for explants, namely solid media (in the form of gel solids and then the nutrient mixture is inserted in the solid gel) and liquid media (in the form of liquid media that is calm or always moving depending on needs and then the nutrient mixture dissolved in water). The media added varied both in type and amount depending on the purpose of the tissue culture. The media used must also be sterilized by heating it with an autoclave.
Often these lateral buds are difficult to see with the naked eye but have leaf growing points which contain many prospective shoots. The development of adventitious shoots that have many species, plant organs such as roots, shoots, or tubers can be induced to form tissues that are not usually produced in these organs. , and the last is Somatic embryogenesis. The greatest potential for cloning multiplication is through somatic embryogenesis, where 1 cell can produce 1 embryo and become a complete plant. Somatic embryogenesis can occur in callus.
Nowadays tissue culture techniques are used not only as a means to study physiological and biochemical aspects of plants, especially proof of the totipotency theory. However, it has developed into a method for various purposes such as Micropropagation (Micro plant propagation) Tissue culture technology has been used to assist large-scale plant production through micropropagation. Initially small amounts of plant tissue can produce hundreds or even thousands of plants continuously.
Tissue culture techniques have become an important part in helping the success of genetic engineering of plants (gene transfer). For example, transfer of bacterial genes (such as the cry gene from Bacillus thuringensis) into plant cells will be expressed after the regeneration of the transgenic plants is reached. As in the research of the agricultural engineering university of Padjadjaran, transforming the pulut corn genes which are tolerant to drought but have low yield potential because of the small size of the cob and easily broken and attacked by pests With the genes of Bacillus thuringiensis (gram positive bacteria) to obtain corn plants pulut Bt which is resistant to seed fly larvae.
I do not agree with the country that takes germplasm genes from other countries to develop in their own country. Tissue culture means multiplying plants according to their parent properties through the germplasm gene. By this means developed countries steal a country’s wealth for its own sake. If successful, surely developed countries want to research further and take the gene again. Especially if the gene is not suitable in other countries’ climate, it will certainly be wasted. Continuous retrieval can cause extinction of the plant. This is not in line with the laws and regulations that have been made that we have taken a high risk of developing tissue culture technologies for existing plants.
Because a country’s germplasm is a blessing that must be mantain to create an environmental balance.