The in-vitro conservation of valuable genetic resources
Today tissue culture techniques are indispensable tools for modern plant research. They provided fascinating new methods for fundamental research, particularly for investigations of cell metabolism like the elucidation of biochemical pathways or the inves
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Introduction
Today tissue culture techniques are indispensable tools for modern plant research. They provided fascinating new methods for fundamental research, particularly for investigations of cell metabolism like the elucidation of biochemical pathways or the investigation of subcellular transport mechanisms. They even led to the discovery of phenomena like somac1onal variation that became new topics of investigation. At the same time cell culture techniques contributed considerably to plant biotechnology. The fermentation of suspension cultures and the mass propagation of in-vitro plants have been made possible. Improvement of old and the development of new breeding techniques were achieved as well as techniques like virus eradication. Finally, even the most advanced techniques of molecular transformation of plants were based on tissue culture techniques. When Haberlandt firstly attempted to grow cells of higher plants in-vitro he could not foresee that he would become the founder of a wide new research field of outstanding importance for botany. Nevertheless, he already felt that it could be a completely new approach to investigate cells on a physiological basis. The development of the first microscopes in the 18 th century allowed humans to see a completely new world. It was thus not surprising that during the 19th century the composition of living organisms made from single cells and tissues was discovered and the disciplines of histology and cytology were born. Although the German botanist Schleiden postulated already in 1839 that plants consisted of single cells, each representing a kind of elementary organism, morphological studies of single cells were only performed when Haberlandt started his work. Haberlandt isolated single cells for the first time to study their physiology but also to investigate physiological links to other cells of the intact whole organism. There were still too many requirements missing to make his work a real success - sterilization procedures, equipment to achieve a sterile environment, isolation procedures for cells, optimum salt and vitamin composition of media and finally the knowledge about hormones and hormone action. Nevertheless Haberlandt opened the way not only by his experiments but also by his fruitful suggestions for further M. Laimer et al. (eds.), Plant Tissue Culture © Springer-Verlag Wien 2003
G. Mix-Wagner and H. M. Schumacher
work that anticipated a lot of approaches which have been realized much later. Still today even the most advanced techniques for plant investigation and plant improvement have to rely on plant biodiversity. Already Haberlandt used different model systems - leaf cells of Lamium purpureum and Eichhornia crassipes, hair cells of Urtica dioica and Tradescantia virginica, in other experiments hydathodes of Conocephalus ovatus - to investigate different problems. Even modern techniques for genetic transformation of plants need a suitable genotype/variety that can be transformed and regenerated. Modern techniques even created new kinds of valu
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