The Untapped Potential Of Plant Thin Cell Layers

Abstract

Thin cell layers (TCLs), which contain a small number of cells or tissues, are explants excised from different organs (stems, leaves, roots, inflorescences, flowers, cotyledons, hypocotyls/epicotyls, and embryos). After almost 45 years of research, this culture system has been used for several monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants of commercial importance, and for model plants. The limited amount of cells in a TCL is of paramount importance because marker molecules/genes of differentiation can be easily localized in situ in the target/responsive cells. Thus, the use of TCLs has allowed, and continues to allow, for the expansion of knowledge in plant research in a practical and applied manner into the fields of tissue culture and micropropagation, cell and organ genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, and development. Starting from a brief historical background, the actual and potential uses of the TCL system are briefly reviewed.

Recent advances and novelties in the thin cell layer-based plant biotechnology – a mini-review

“…The selection of an explant can determine the outcome of organogenesis in vitro and is an important parameter that a tissue culture researcher must optimize * Corresponding author: jaimetex@yahoo.com J.A. Teixeira da Silva, J. Dobránszki 90 when conducting trials prior to initiating any tissue culture experiment (Teixeira da Silva et al, 2015a;Bhattacharyya et al, 2018;Ramírez-Mosqueda et al, 2018). This is because in the presence of the same plant growth regulators (PGRs) that are supplemented in in vitro regeneration media, different explants may display different responses.…”

“…This potential nature of TCLs to produce, in theory, many more propagules than conventional explants (a single explant can be divided, once sliced, into multiple TCLs) might ensure that the technique will continue to be used in the future and explored for new plant species. The use of TCLs in rhizogenesis studies in A. thaliana to understand the mechanism of adventitious rooting has allowed this system to be employed for fundamental research in plant developmental biology (Teixeira da Silva et al, 2015a;Della Rovere et al, 2016;Fattorini et al, 2017). The importance of TCLs in the plant tissue culture and in vitro biotechnology, now and in the future, is thus optimistic.…”