Tissue-culture technique and its application in major agronomic crops

The application of tissue culture technique to the production of major agronomic crops can be categorized into the following fields. (1)The combination of meristem/shoot-tip culture and heat treatment can produce seedlings free from the transmission of viruses. (2)Cross incompatibility between distantly-related species can be overcome by test-tube fertilization and embryo culture, (3)Breeding efficiency can be improved by the utilization of haploid plants from anther culture. (4)Mass propagation of plants can be achieved by the adoption of meristem and shoot-tip culture. (5)Liquid suspension culture is valuable in mass propagation, mutation breeding, and production of artificial seeds and secondary products. (6)Techniques of tissue culture and suspension culture can be applied to the preservation of plant germplasms. (7)The success of protoplast culture and protoplast fusion provides the opportunity of producing somatic hybrids and materials for genetic engineering studies. (8)Gene transfer through vectors such as Agrobacterium tumefaciens and A. rhizogenes followed by plant regeneration with tissue culture technique are essential in the recombinant DNA studies. This paper summarizes the application of tissue culture technique in these fields with representing examples