Frequently Asked Questions

You will need MS medium (or substitute), gelling agent (agar or gellan gum), and sugar to establish any plant in tissue culture. Use the Plant Preservative Mixture (PPM) in your media to avoid contamination.

You can buy MS media, agar, gellan gum, PPM™, Plant Hormones, and culture vessels from your one-stop PCT store.

You will need to follow general tissue culture best practices to prevent contamination in tissue culture, such as:

• Wear a PPE kit, such as gloves and masks. (If you’re working under open flames, avoid wearing gloves).
• Work under a laminar flow hood
• Clean your culture area using alcohol
• Sterilize all chemicals, tools, and equipment used in the process to prevent contamination
• Clean your hands before working with plants
• Use healthy and disease-free plants as a source of plant tissue
• Use PPM to give your plants all-round protection against all types of contamination

1. Follow the given steps to use MS media:
2. Take a beaker and add 800 ml of sterile distilled water to it.
3. To the water add PCT’s MS Media 4.54 grams (you don’t need to
   measure it as it comes in a measured bottle), 30 grams of sugar, and
   PPM™ (generally 1-2 ml/L of media based on the plants and contamination
   level.
4. Add water to make 950 ml of the volume of the media.
5. Adjust the pH of the media between 5.8-6.0.
6. Add PCT’s Supreme Tissue Culture Grade Agar to the media and keep stirring.
7. Make up the volume of the media to 1000ml.
8. Autoclave the medium for 20 minutes at 15 psi and 121℃.

Your media is ready!

Tissue culture has many applications:

• Produce plants at a commercial scale rapidly
• Produce disease-free plants
• Produce plants irrespective of their seasons
• Produce haploid and hybrid plants
• Conserve plant species
• Produce a large number of plants in a small space

Explore more about the applications and advantages of tissue culture in our blog.

Yes, you can create a home-based tissue culture lab. For that, you need at least one room with all basic equipment, tools, and chemicals. Clean the room thoroughly and ensure it’s not crowded with other materials.

Contamination may be a major issue in a home-based lab, that’s why we recommend following all basic protocols to maintain aseptic conditions, such as wearing a PPE kit and using Plant preservative mixture (PPM™) in your media.

To get started, you need at least $5k to build a basic tissue culture lab. However, it’s suitable for hobbyists or small-scale culturists. So, for an advanced lab, where you can produce plants on large scale, you need at least $25K to get started. This can go up based on the space you choose to build your lab, and the equipment, tools, and chemicals you equip your lab with to get into the tissue culture process.

You can search on search engines, such as google and yahoo, with the keywords “tissue culture protocol for [insert your plant name]” or “[insert your plant name] tissue culture”.

You can find plenty of research papers containing protocols for the plant.

Other than that you can also search our blog or youtube channel, where we try to bring you protocols for plants we work on in our lab or extracted from research papers.

Just follow these general instructions:

• Wear appropriate protective clothing, such as a lab coat, gloves, and a face mask. These will help to prevent any contamination from your body and ensure the safety of the operator.
• Use a laminar flow hood or a clean bench to work under sterile
  conditions. This will help to minimize the risk of airborne contaminants entering the working area.
• Sterilize all equipment and materials before use. Autoclave glassware, media, and other materials, and wipe down surfaces with a suitable disinfectant.
• Keep the tissue culture lab clean and organized. This will help to prevent the accumulation of dust and other contaminants and ensure that you can easily find the equipment and materials you need.

The factors that affect plant tissue culture success rates include:

• Genotype
• Explant type
• Culture medium
• Growth regulators
• Physical environment
• Contamination control

Plant growth regulators, also known as plant hormones, play a crucial role in tissue culture. They control the growth and differentiation of cells and tissues in vitro and are used to induce cell division, regulate morphogenesis, and promote organogenesis in plant tissues.

• Auxin promotes cell division and elongation in plant tissues.
• It induces rooting in explants and helps to establish root systems in tissue culture.
• Auxin stimulates callus formation, which can be used to generate large amounts of undifferentiated cells for tissue culture.
• It is involved in the formation of somatic embryos in tissue culture.

The auxins used in tissue culture applications include 3-acetic acid (IAA), indole-3-butyric acid (IBA), 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D). The type of hormone and the concentration to be used in the process depends on the plant species you work on.

• Cytokinin is a plant growth regulator that stimulates cell division and differentiation in plant tissues.
• It is commonly used in tissue culture to promote shoot formation and branching.
• Cytokinin can be used in combination with auxin to promote callus formation and somatic embryogenesis.

The auxins used in tissue culture applications include kinetin, zeatin, benzylaminopurine (BAP), and meta-topolin (mT). The specific type and concentration of cytokinin used will depend on the tissue type and desired response in tissue culture.

Tissue culture plants can be sold to various markets such as nurseries, gardening centers, and horticulture wholesalers. You can also sell them online through e-commerce platforms or directly to individual customers via social media or a website. It's important to research and identify potential markets and understand their requirements before selling tissue culture plants.