2 Mar 2022

Getting Started in Tissue Culture? Here’s What You Should Know

Anjali Singh, MS

As a content and community manager, I leverage my expertise in plant biotechnology, passion for tissue culture, and writing skills to create compelling articles, simplifying intricate scientific concepts, and address your inquiries. As a dedicated science communicator, I strive to spark curiosity and foster a love for science in my audience.

Table of Contents

Having trouble growing your plants the traditional way and want to reduce or eliminate any risk of infection? Thinking about trying advanced tissue culture, but don't know where to begin? Well, you’ve come to the right place! Because this is what this article is about. Here you will get to answers some of the most commonly asked questions by tissue culture beginners.

Introduction

Having trouble growing your plants the traditional way and want to reduce or eliminate any risk of infection? Thinking about trying advanced tissue culture, but don't know where to begin? Well, you’ve come to the right place! Because this is what this article is about. Here you will get to answers some of the most commonly asked questions by tissue culture beginners.

Tissue culture is an advanced technique to grow plants. It’s mainly beneficial when you want to grow plants on a commercial scale, produce disease-free plants or increase yield. The process isn’t suitable if you want a couple of plants for your backyard garden. Because, it's an expensive technique, where you’ll need to purchase some chemicals, equipment, and tools that aren’t cheap and need dedicated space for the process.

So, if you’re someone who wants to run a nursery, produce plants for commercial purposes, or if you have money and want to try your hands on the technique as a hobby, then go for it!!

However, you must have some confusion before you get started in the area. Here’re some questions that we often receive over emails and messages from our worldwide customers who want to get started into tissue culture, with their answers.

I’m interested in tissue culture but I don’t know what materials do I need to get started.

To get started with tissue culture you will be needing a dedicated space for the process. Because one needs to maintain an aseptic/sterile condition. Moreover, you will be needing some basic tools such as forceps, blades, a couple of petridishes, a small burner, culture vessels, etc. In equipment, you’ll be needing an autoclave or a pressure cooker with a pressure gauge, UV light, temperature controller equipment, and a laminar hood.

A laminar hood is required to perform the tissue culture process in an aseptic condition. However, if you can’t afford you can make a cheaper set up from a plastic box and air filter which purifies the air.

Other than this you will need chemicals like MS media (most plants are cultured using this media, however, certain plants such as coconut, do not prefer MS medium), agar or gellan gum, plant preservative mixture (PPM) to prevent contamination, growth hormones, distilled water/double sterile water, bleach, surfactant, and alcohol.

These all are basic tools, equipment, and chemicals that you need to get started. You can read these two articles, this and this to learn in detail about building your own lab.

If you want to purchase all the required chemicals for doing tissue culture, then you can prefer Plant Cell Technology’s starter kit.

I have a small spare room in my home, can I use it to do tissue culture?

Sure! The more isolated the tissue culture space is the lesser chances of contamination. However, make sure it’s not a noisy or windy area. It’s better to clean and sterilize the area with alcohol to kill any kind of contaminants. Especially make sure to completely sterile the area where you will be performing your tissue culture process. Try to keep the place less crowded to prevent contamination.

How much does it cost to create a tissue culture setup?

The only limitation to the tissue culture is that it’s expensive. However, it also depends on how advanced the setup you are creating for the process. Such as if you want to create a space for commercial purposes, then you might need to create a well-equipped lab, however, if it's for hobby purposes you can create a cheaper setup with small space and only essential equipment and tools. Still, the exact price is difficult to tell.

But, this is an article that we’ve created on the estimated cost of building a basic tissue culture lab. It’ll be very helpful for you to get an idea.

I want to do tissue culture on a specific plant, what materials do I need?

To get started with the tissue culture of a plant, you need a culture medium, agar, gellan gum, growth hormones, and PPM to prevent contamination. Prefer a specific protocol to know which medium and growth hormones do you require.

Where to find the media recipe for a particular plant?

You can google to get the recipe of the plant. Search like “tissue culture or rose plant” or “tissue culture media recipe for the rose plant” or “rose plant tissue culture”. After making the search you’ll get some research papers on your search results, in which protocol for culturing the plant will be available. You can prefer the paper which matched your available resources or with the best results.

Another resource is tissue culture youtube videos created by tissue culturists, where they share recipes of some of the plants. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay updated with tissue culture processes, protocols, equipment, and more.

How to prepare tissue culture media?

It’s a simple process. Where you’ve to mix the media in distilled water and stir it. Sometimes gentle heat is required. You can prefer this and this article to learn about the requirement and preparation of the medium.

How to decide which plant hormones are suitable for my plants?

Generally auxin and cytokinin are used in tissue culture. Auxin promote root growth and cytokinin support shoot growth. However, there're several synthetic analogs available for these hormones that are used in the tissue culture processes. So, prefer a specific protocol to tissue culture your specific plant. You can find them on google search or a few of them on our YouTube channel as well.

Where can I make a purchase of products?

You can purchase all the basic chemicals and tools from the PCT store at a much more affordable cost. PCT is one of the leading plant tissue culture companies that strive to enhance the tissue culture experience of culturists, hobbyists, and enthusiasts worldwide with its world-class products and consultation services.

Before I get started in tissue culture, I need a consultation to learn more about the technique and some of the questions I have. What to do?

You can try PCT consultation. You can book a call with us where you get to directly talk with one of our scientists. They will answer all your queries and confusions and will present you with the best-working potential solution for your problems. Whether you are a beginner or an established culturist, if you get stuck at a point, you can talk to our scientist about your challenges.

In some cases and if you want we also do lab visits to provide on-site training and hands-on experience in tissue culture.

If you’re a cannabis culturist or wanna be a cannabis culturist, we also have special consultations for cannabis growers, where you get solutions to HpLVD contamination with many other services.

Read this and this article to learn about PCT consultation services, how does it work, and how is it beneficial for you.

If your question is not answered here, then you can mail us at info@plantcelltechnology.com or anjali@plantcelltechnology.com. Our dedicated team will help you to resolve your challenges, answer your questions, and help you to get started in tissue culture.

Happy Culturing!!