The plant tissue culture

Progress in the field of plant tissue culture at the Plant Biochemistry Sector, Centro de Energia na Agricultura (CENA), Piracicaba, S.P., Brazil, pertains to the simplification of development in 'Phaseolus vulgaris' by dividing the organism into its component organs, tissues, and cells and the maintenance of these components on defined culture media 'in vitro'. This achievement has set the stage for probing the basis for the stability of the differentiated states and/or the reentry of mature differentiated cells into the mitotic cell cycle and their subsequent redifferentiation. Data from such studies at the cytological and biochemical level have been invaluable in the elucidation of the control mechanisms responsible for expression of the cellular phenotype. Unlimited possibilities exist for the application of tissue culture in the vegetative propagation of 'Phaseolus' and other important cultivars in providing genocopies or a large scale and/or readily obtaining plantlets from haploid cell lines or from protoplast (wall-less cells) hybridization products following genetic manipulation. These tools are being applied in this laboratory for the development and selection of high protein synthesizing 'Phaseolus' cultivars