Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction and history of plant tissue culture. 2. Laboratory design and management. 3. Good laboratory practices. 4. Contamination. 5. Sterilization techniques. 6. Buffers and solutions. 7. Plant culture media. 8. Plant hormones. 9. Collection and preparation of explants. 10. Micropropagation. 11. Cell suspension culture. 12. Meristem culture. 13. Callus culture. 14. Organogenesis. 15. Somatic embryogenesis. 16. Somaclonal variation. 17. Embryo rescue and embryo culture. 18. Haploid production. 19. Protoplast isolation, culture and somatic hybridization. 20. Secondary metabolite production. 21. Cryo-preservation. 22. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. 23. Micro tuber production in potato. 24. Elementary statistics often used in plant sciences. 25. Design, its layout, analysis and interpretation for the experiment conducted in laboratories. Appendices. Glossary. References. Subject index.

"Biotechnology is an emerging field of science and as such the Government of India is laying a large and exclusive impetus on it. Plant tissue culture is the basic and the most important aspect of biotechnology. All the molecular biological and biotechnological findings can only be realized in material by the plant tissue culture. Therefore, plant tissue culture has been introduced as a compulsory course in the undergraduate and postgraduate syllabi of all the agricultural universities, ICAR institutes and other plant science related educational organizations. This book has been designed to benefit the students, the research scholars and the scientists for developing a level of self-confidence to conduct the experiments independently and can acquire the practical skills along with the basic know-how about the techniques being used. Each chapter is devoted to a separate aspect of plant tissue culture and the chapters are arranged in the order of increasing technical complexity. The opening chapters present a brief historical survey of the field of plant tissue culture, a background in sterilization techniques. Various components of the nutrient medium have been dealt in greater detail. The text deals with the experimental details of each and every technique. The protocols have been simplified legibly to include details and notes that we hope will help the user avoid unnecessary errors and confusion. All the applications of plant tissue culture have been very well discussed and the techniques associated with them described in detail. This being a complete book on plant tissue culture will solve all types of problem of the users who will not have to use other resource books for the same purpose." (jacket)