Meristen culture
• Meristem (type of tissue) consists of
an undifferentiated group of cells capable
of dividing throughout their life.
• These cells produce new cells that can
stretch, differentiate, and enlarge as they
mature.
• Tissues inside plants
• Ability of division
• Using them in culturing and making whole
plant is meristem culture
• Only plants
• Meristematic tissue is present at several
locations in the plants.
• In roots and shoots, meristem is present at the
tip and called root apical meristem and shoot
apical meristem.
• Based on its location, meristematic tissue is
categorized into three groups:
• Based on its location, meristematic tissue is
categorized into three groups:
• Apical meristem: Present at the root and shoots tips
of the plant. The divisions in this area facilitate
growth and development of root and shoot.
• Intercalary meristem: Located at the intercalary
position and helps to increase the height of the
internode. It’s generally found in grass, monocots,
and pines.
• Lateral meristem: Located at the lateral side of
stems and roots, involved in increasing the thickness
of the plant. It includes vascularand cork cambium
• MERISTEM CULTURE
• The culture of the meristems involves the removal and in vitro
placement of dome-shaped meristematic tissue on the
culture media for the development of the whole plant.
• Morel and Martin developed the meristem culture technique
to culture Dahlia in 1952.
• Morel cultured the orchid Cymbidium using the same
technique. It has become popular among culturists mainly to
obtain pathogen-free plants.
• The other terminologies used for meristem culture include
shoot tip culture, meristem tip culture, tip culture, or culture
of shoot apices, depending on the size of explant used in the
culture.
• It’s essential to use a fixed size of explant to achieve
the particular goal of the culture.
• For example, if the goal is to obtain virus-free plants,
shoot tips of 10 mm are used with minimum
surrounding tissue. If the objective were rapid clonal
propagation, 5-10 mm shoot tip explants are used.
• The explant size plays a major role in meristem
culture. The exceptional case where the size of the
shoot tip culture doesn’t matter is micropropagation.
• Shoot tip culture is an extensively used meristem
culture but nodal explants of various sizes are also
employed in rapid clonal propagation.
• STAGES OF MERISTEM CULTURE
• Meristem culture involves three steps of propagation
that is explained below:
• Initiation of culture: In this step, the explant is
transferred to culture media for callus formation and
generation of new shoots.
• Shoot multiplication: The germinated propagule is
multiplied, followed by axillary shoot proliferation for
genetic stability.
• Cytokinins are used in higher quantity to overcome
the apical dominance in this step.
• Rooting of the developed shoot:
• When the shoots are developed, they are transferred to
rooting medium for adventitious root formation.
• In this stage, NAA naphthalene acetic acid followed by IBA
indole 3 butyric acidand 2, 4-D synthetic auxinare used to
induce root formation.
• Transfer of the plantlets:
• After a few weeks, when roots are developed, the plantlets
are transferred to small pots in green house for
acclmatization.
Applications
• 1. Virus elimination
• Meristem culture alone or in conjunction with several other treatments
have been used to eliminate viruses from several plants.
• For example, many researchers found meristem tip culture of 0.3 mm
have been useful to eliminate virus in sweet potato and cassava.
However, meristem tips of larger size (1-2.5 mm) have also given
satisfactory result in virus elimination when heat treatments are
provided.
• 2. Mass propagation
• Rapid clonal propagation is one of the most popular reasons for using
tissue culture techniques. Several orchids and ornamental plants have
been grown using meristem and shoot tip culture.
• The rate of propagation is higher in organogenesis and embryogenesis
compared to meristem tip culture.
• Despite of the rate, meristem culture still considered as an option for
the mass propagation because it maintains the genetic stability in
cultures.
• 3. Germplasm storage
• The most economical and efficient medium for germplasm storage is
seeds.
• But, the technique is less efficient or sometimes doesn’t work in
case of crops producing sterile or highly heterozygous seeds. It’s also
not useful for plants that loose viability after a short period of time.
• The best solution to the mentioned problem is the use of meristem
tips to serve the purpose.
• It’s because they are less differentiated and produce identical
progeny. Also, because they can produce pathogen free plants at
higher frequency and better withstand freezing injury.
• 4. Genetic transformations
• Meristem culture is useful in breeding programmes where hybrid
plants produce non-viable or abortive seeds and are unable to
mature.
• The meristem and shoot tips have also some application in
Agrobacterium mediated genetic transformation.
