What are the types of tissue culture?

Animal cell or tissue cultures are commonly categorized as either a primary culture or a cell line. Cell lines, which are established cultures, are immortal. They propagate indefinitely and are generally derived from tumors. On other hand, primary cultures are mortal and consist of samples biopsied from a living organism. While primary cultures are advantageous in that they provide a model-system that mirrors the sample under investigation, the longer the sample is maintained in culture, the more mutations it will develop.

Common examples of plant tissue culture include the following:

• Callus culture – it involves the growth of a callus (composed of differentiated and non- differentiated cells), which is followed by a procedure that induces organ differentiation. For this type of tissue culture, the culture is often sustained on a gel medium, which is composed of agar and a mixture of given macro and micronutrients depending on the type of cells
• Embryo culture – a method that involves the isolation of an embryo from a given organism for in vitro growth.
• Cell suspension culture – in this method plant cells or tissues are artificially grown in a liquid medium and not on a gel medium.
• Protoplast Culture - protoplast is used to refer to cell (fungi, bacteria, plant cells etc) in which the cell wall has been removed. Protoplasts can be made by degrading cell walls with a mixture of the appropriate polysaccharide-degrading enzymes. Protoplast culture is an important method that provides numerous cells (single cells) that can be used for various studies. In protoplast culture, a number of phases can be observed.