GCSE Biology

Tissue Culture

Edexcel

Introduction

  • Tissue Culture has brought a revolution in medical science, agriculture, and biological research.
  • It involves growing cells, tissues, and organs in laboratories.
  • With this technique, a large amount of tissue can be produced from just a single individual organism.
  • This can be further used for a variety of purposes.

Real-Life Uses:

Diagram illustrating four key applications of Tissue Culture including vaccine production, medicine testing, cancer research, and species conservation.

Tissue Culture

  • Cells or tissues (known as explants) are taken from their parent (plant or animal).
  • These are, then, transferred to a nutrient medium (a liquid or a solid with nutrients).
  • In this medium, the explants divide and grow into an individual.
  • This process is known as tissue culture.
Flowchart illustrating the Tissue Culture process from extracting plant tissue to growing it on agar medium and transferring it to compost.
  • Using the tissue culture technique, identical cells can be grown.
  • These form undifferentiated cells (callus) and can be made specialized.

Uses of Tissue Culture

  • Conservation of vulnerable plant species.
  • Development of plants that are difficult to grow from seeds.
  • Cloning of genetically modified plants.
  • Study of viruses is done using cell cultures.
  • Cancer cells can be studied using cultures of cancer cells.
  • Testing of new medicines without any harm to animals or humans can be done using tissue culture.

Process of Tissue Culture

Vertical flowchart detailing the step-by-step Tissue Culture process from selecting a parent plant to growing full plants.

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What is Biological Control?

  • The process of controlling pests and weeds using living organisms is called biological control.
  • For example, the introduction of ladybirds to eat plant-destroying aphid pests.
  • This method of getting rid of pests and weeds replaces chemical pesticides and herbicides.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Biological Control

Comparison table listing the advantages and disadvantages of Biological Control, such as environmental safety versus unpredictability.

Frequently Asked Questions

Tissue culture is a technique where small pieces of plant tissue or cells are grown in a nutrient medium to produce new plants.
It is used to produce large numbers of genetically identical plants quickly, especially plants with desirable characteristics.
To prevent microorganisms such as bacteria or fungi from growing and competing with the plant cells.
Biological control is the use of living organisms to reduce the population of pests.
Natural predators, parasites, or pathogens are introduced to control pest numbers.
It reduces chemical pollution, targets specific pests, and does not leave harmful residues in the environment.
No, it can take time to work and may not completely eliminate the pest population.

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