Ch'I Sun

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Award Date

1966

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department / School

Botany

Abstract

Studies of the totipotency of cells of various parts of carrot tissues and organ formation by the cultivated carrot leaf cells have been made in this investigation. It is believed that each matured cell, even though appearances differ from cell to cell, still contains the whole set of genes as in a zygote. The differences in appearance are due to the functional genes. This potential of the matured cells to go back to the zygote state is called totipotency. Theoretically, if certain stimuli were applied to force these nonfunctional genes to become functional, all these cells may behave in the same way as the zygote. F.C. Steward has studied the totipotency of the carrot root (34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39). He started by cultivating a piece of carrot root tissue in media containing small plant stimuli. He found that the tissue develops through several different stages and ends with an entire carrot plant, indicating that the cells in the carrot root tissues have totipotency. Plant tissue culture was introduced by Haberlandt in 1902. Within the plant kingdom, both gymnosperms and angiosperms have been used for tissue culture. Not all plants are easily cultivated. There have been attempts to cultivate many parts of plant tissues from different plants. All these cultures can either maintain the metabolic activity in the media and enlarge cells or regain the dividing activity and form callus tissues. The cultivating media usually contains three major components; carbohydrate, minerals and organic supplements. (see more in text)

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Cells
Zygotes
Callus (Botany)

Format

application/pdf

Publisher

South Dakota State University

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