Biology · Biotechnology and Its Applications · NEET
No, but they are linked. Tissue culture is the whole method of growing a plant from an explant in a nutrient medium. Micropropagation is one use of it: producing thousands of plants in a short time. So micropropagation is a result of tissue culture, not a different thing.
An explant is any part of a plant that is cut out and grown in a test tube. NCERT says clearly: "any part of a plant taken out and grown in a test tube." It can be a piece of leaf, stem, or meristem. The cell in the explant uses totipotency to grow a whole new plant.
The nutrient medium is rich in sugar (sucrose) and salts, so bacteria and fungi grow on it very fast. If the culture is not sterile, these microbes take over and kill the plant tissue. That is why NCERT stresses "sterile conditions in special nutrient media."
NCERT lists it clearly. The medium must give a carbon source such as sucrose, plus inorganic salts, vitamins, amino acids, and growth regulators like auxins and cytokinins. Auxins and cytokinins control root and shoot growth from the tissue.
Yes. All plants grown from one original plant by tissue culture are genetically the same. NCERT calls them somaclones. This is useful when you want many copies of one good plant, but it means there is no new variation.
Try the real previous-year questions from this chapter — each with the answer and a full solution.
NCERT states scientists learnt during the 1950s that whole plants could be regenerated from explants. It grew as another technology when traditional breeding could not keep pace with food demand.
Somaclones are plants produced through tissue culture that are genetically identical to the original parent plant from which they were grown.
NCERT names tomato, banana and apple as important food plants produced on commercial scale using micropropagation.
Auxins and cytokinins are the growth regulators added to the nutrient medium. They are needed along with a carbon source, salts, vitamins and amino acids.
It links directly to totipotency, explant, micropropagation and somaclones, all high-yield fact-based points in Biotechnology and Its Applications that NTA repeats in definition-style questions.
