19 Aug 2021

Tissue Culture of Anthurium

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

Why you should know about the plant

Anthurium has been an amazing decorative plant for houses, offices, and some restaurants that adds more beauty to their place. You might know the plant as tailflower, flamingo flower, or laceleaf.

Anthurium is a genus, belonging to the family Araceae and honing 1000 beautiful flowering plant species. They are native to America, distributed from northern Mexico to northern Argentina and parts of the Caribbean. Its also found in regions like Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuelan Antilles, and the Windward Islands.

The plants either grow as epiphytes (plants that grow on other plants) or as terrestrial plants. The drooping, heart-shaped, dark-colored leaves are present in a cluster and possess variant shapes. The inflorescence of the plants contains tiny flowers that have both male and female structures. The flowers are present in a close spiraled structure on the spadix that ranges from an elongated spike, globes, to club shapes.

The spathe present beneath the spadix is lance-shaped in most species and extends out in flat or curved forms. Sometimes it covers the spadix, like a hood. The flowers of Anthurium may appear throughout the year in optimum growing conditions.

Source: Gardeningknowhow

The fruits of the plant are juicy colorful berries containing two seeds. These fruits develop from the flowers, present on the spadix of the plant. However, they rarely appear on indoor plants.

The spathe and spadix are the main attractions to cultivators, who try to grow these Anthurium’s organs in different colors and shapes.

The Process of Tissue Culture

The tissue culture process is advantageous when it comes to eliminating diseases from plants, producing plants in mass, synthesizing a heavy amount of secondary compounds, and conserving species.

The methods of propagation include:

• Propagation from axillary or terminal buds.
• Propagation by the formation of adventitious shoots or adventitious somatic embryos.

And, according to George et al. [2008], there are five stages of propagation:

• Stage 0: Mother plant selection and preparation
• Stage 1: In vitro culture establishment
• Stage 2: Shoot multiplication
• Stage 3: Rooting of micro shoots
• Stage 4: Acclimatization

Tissue culture is a perfect technique for one looking for mass production of plants.

The ornamental flowers are in sky-high demand among common people and some businesses. And, tissue culture can be a smooth technique to balance the export of these plants.

Among tropical cut flowers, Anthuriums are the second-highest ornamental plants in demand. They are conventionally grown using vegetative parts or seeds, but their propagation rate through this technique is quite low. Furthermore, the time from pollination, seed maturity and the development of plants takes about three years in the breeding program.

Tissue culture is the best alternative for these plants with respect to its advantages over conventional techniques, which include:

• flexible adjustment of factors affecting regeneration such as explant type, nutrient plant growth regulator levels, and conditions of the environment.
• production of clones at the desired rate.
• continued production even during seasonal changes.
• increase in the multiplication rate of plants.

Related: Using Tissue Culture to Save Succulents

Tissue culture of Anthurium andreanum

The tissue culture of Anthurium was first reported by Pierik et al., (1974). The plant tissue culture of Anthurium andreanum has been achieved through adventitious shoots formation from callus and direct shoot regeneration from lamina explants.

Here, a procedure of Anthurium andreanum culture using leaf segments is given. The study is taken from the paper: Atak, Cimen & Çelik, Özge. (2009). Micropropagation of Anthurium andreanum from leaf explants. Pak. J. Bot. 41. 1155-1161.

Explant: Collect leaf segments from the plant Anthurium andreanum.

Surface sterilization: Surface sterilize the leaf explants using 70% (v/v) ethanol for 1 minute, soak them in gentamicin solution for 30 minutes, and then soak in 20% (v/v) commercial bleach (commercial bleach contains about 5% (v/v) sodium hypochloride) for 12 minutes.

Then, rinse it three times using sterile distilled water and cut them into segments of 1 cm2 piece.

Media Preparation and culturing stages: For the propagation of indirect organogenesis, prepare Media A, B, C.

• Media A for Callus induction: This media consist of half-strength MS (Murashige & Shoog, 1962) basal salt and vitamins supplemented with 30 g/l sucrose, 6 g/l agar, 0.6 mg/l 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid), and 1 mg/l BA (benzylaminopurine).

Culture the explants in the given media. And incubate the cultures in the dark at 27℃ for one month for callus initiation.

• Media B for Shoot regeneration: It’s consist of modified half-strength MS salts with NH4NO3 lowered to 250 mg/l, 100 mg/l myo-inositol, 5 mg/l nicotinic acid, 0.5 mg/l thiamin, 0.5 mg/l folic acid, 0.05 mg/l biotin, 30 mg/l Fe-NaEDTA, 20 g/l sucrose, and 6 g/l agar supplemented with 0.1 mg/l 2, 4-D and 1 mg/l BA.

Take the callus grown for 1 month in medium A and transfer it to Vitro-Vent plant tissue culture containers containing media B.

Then, place the containers in a growth chamber at 27 ℃ under 16/8 h light and dark photoperiod. One month later, the plantlets were formed.

• Media C for Rooting: It consists of Medium B supplemented with 1mg/l IBA (indole-3 butyric acid) and 0.04% active charcoals to initiate roots.

Transfer the regenerated shoots longer than 2 cm into media C. And, after a few weeks, your plantlets will be ready to transfer to the acclimation stage.

If the given procedure works for you, please share your experience with us via email. We’d be thrilled to share your success story with other tissue culturists on our social media platforms!

Happy Culturing!!

Source: Giphy

Written by: Anjali Singh

Anjali is a scientific content writer at Plant Cell Technology. She has joined the company in 2020 with her technical knowledge of tissue culture, a background in Plant Biotechnology, and research skills. Apart from writing educational articles for our tissue culture enthusiasts, she also helps them with their queries on the tissue culture processes.

Before joining PCT, she has worked with various other biotech industries as a Scientific content writer and holds good experience in laboratory work and research.