Introduction to Plant Biotechnology
Unit 5 for Grade 12
1 10/01/2025
Contents
Introduction to Plant Biotechnology
Introduction to tissue culture
Types of crops produced by tissue culture
Benefits of tissue culture
Introduction to genetic engineering
Application of genetic engineering in crop
production
2 10/01/2025
Objectives
Explain what tissue culture means.
Describe the benefits of tissue culture in crop
production
Appreciate the techniques of growing plant cells,
tissues, and organs in growing plants.
Apply the techniques of growing plant cells,
tissues, and organs
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Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary
field that involves the integration
of natural sciences and
engineering sciences in order to
achieve the application of
organisms, cells, and molecular
analogues(structurally similar) for
products and services.
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Cont…
Biotechnology include human gene
therapy,
genetically modifying plants and
changing the genes of bacteria.
Biotechnology helps improve crops so
they produce more, healthier produce.
It also helps fight human diseases.
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Plant Biotechnology
Advance plant breeding and plant
improvement by learning critical skills in
molecular biology, genetics, and
genomics.
Plant biotechnology is a part of our daily
lives in applications such as
Developing nutritionally enhanced foods,
Sustainable agricultural production, and
Engineering plants for industrial and
medical purposes.
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Cont…
Agricultural biotechnology is a
science that allows plant breeders
to make precise genetic changes to
place beneficial traits such as
pest resistance,
disease resistance
herbicide tolerance into plants.
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What are the applications Biotechnology?
Productivity (resistance to
biotic stress: pests, viruses,
pathogens, a biotic stress
tolerance to drought, salinity
… herbicide tolerance.
Plant soil interaction, nutrient
absorption, metabolism
improvement, etc.)
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Cont…
Nutrition improvement: vitamin
enrichment, flavor enhancement
Post-harvest Physiology (fruit
ripening delay)
Food processing
Ornamental plants improvement:
structure, size, color, smell, fruit
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Introduction to tissue
culture
Plant tissueculture / micro propagation is
the technique of growing plant cells,
tissues, and organs on an artificial nutrient
medium under aseptic condition.
Aseptic condition is the absence of
germs, such as bacteria, viruses,and other
microorganisms that can cause disease.
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Cont…
It is in vitro cultivation of plants,seeds and
various parts of the plants(organs,
embryos, tissues, single cells, and
protoplasts).
Culture used for artificial growth of
plant/crop.
Totipotency is the capacity of cell to
develop into an organism by regeneration.
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Cont…
Plant tissue culture is also called micro
propagation.
With micro propagation, plant clones can
be produced using a minute part or explants
of the mother plant.
Clones is the process of producing
individual organisms with identical genomes
either by natural or artificial means
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Cont…
Single cells, plant cells without cell walls
(protoplasts), pieces of leaves, stems or
roots can often be used to generate a new
plant on culture media giving them the
required nutrients and plant hormones.
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Cont…
The basis of plant cell and tissue culture is totipotency.
Tissue culture requires sufficient space and an
exclusive laboratory requirement such as
vacuum pump,
autoclave,
culture tubes,
flasks and
different glassware
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Cont…
The controlled conditions such as
nutrients,
pH medium,
adequate temperature,
proper gaseous
auxins/
cytokinins
liquid environment provide the culture an
environment conducive for growth and multiplication.
Auxins stimulate root development,
cytokines are needed to stimulate shoot
development.
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Plant Tissue culture
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Types of crops produced by tissue culture
Medicinal plants
Ornamental plants
Agricultural plants such as
Potato
asparagus,
cucumber,
grapevine,
banana,
alfalfa,
citrus,
sugarcane,
groundnut,
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Figure Asparagus
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Figure Multiplication and Regeneration of Potato
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Benefits of tissue culture
Plant tissue culture is one of the most rapidly
growing areas of plant biotechnology.
Plant tissue culture has a high potential to develop
improved crops and ornamental plants.
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It has several advantages.These include :
Rapid multiplication of genetically uniform plants
(clones) that possess desirable traits.
The production of multiples of plants in the absence
of seeds or necessary pollinators to produce seeds.
The production of plants in sterile containers that
allow them to be moved with greatly reduced chances
of transmitting diseases, pests and pathogens.
Obtaining plant that is free of viral and other
infections.
This cleaned stock’ can be quickly multiplied and
used in horticulture and agriculture.
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Introduction to genetic
engineering
A genetic modification, sometimes called genetic
engineering, refers to the methods used to change the
pattern in genetic material or information in a plant,
animal or human being in order to produce some desirable
trait.
The genetic material found inside cells in
molecules called DNA, is the “blueprint” for
any living thing.
Genetic engineering is the name of a group of
techniques used for direct genetic modification
of organisms or populations of organisms
using the recombination of DNA
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The conventional breeding:
is limited to exchanging genetic material
between the same or very closely related
species.
has little or no guarantee of any particular
gene combination from the millions of
crosses generated.
may result in transferring undesirable
genes along with the desirable ones.
takes a long time to achieve desired results
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Cont….
How does GM differ from conventional
plant breeding?
The goal of both GM and conventional
plant breeding is to produce crops with
improved characteristics by changing
their genetic makeup.
GM achieves this by adding a new gene
or genes to the genome of a crop plant.
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Cont…
Conventional breeding achieves it by
crossing together plants with relevant
characteristics, and selecting the offspring
with the desired combination of
characteristics, as a result of particular
combinations of genes inherited from the
two parents.
Both conventional plant breeding and GM
deliver genetic crop improvement.
Genetic improvement has been a central
pillar of improved agricultural productivity
for thousands of years.
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This is because wild plants make very poor
Allows the direct transfer of one or just a
few genes, between either closely or
distantly related organisms.
Results in crop or animal improvement in a
shorter time compared to conventional
breeding.
Allows plants or animals to be modified by
removing or switching off particular genes.
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