Faculty of Science

Objectives

To show how modern agriculture relies heavily on tissue culture and transgenic, and how GMOs are increasingly becoming popular.

Contents

Plant cell tissue and organ cultures: Introduction to cell and tissue culture techniques; totipotency; Morphogenesis in vitro; Organogenesis and somatic embryogenesis; Micropropagation and clonal propagation; Synthetic seeds; Germplasm preservation in vitro; Production of haploids and triploids (anther, microspore and endosperm culture); Protoplast culture and somatic hybridization; nuclear and cytoplasmic hybrids.Somaclonal variation in plant cell culture and regenerated plants; Cryopreservation and germplasm conservation; Transgenic plant technology: Gene transfer(vertical) by classical methods; horizontal gene transfer; methods of genetic transformation in plants; methods of nuclear transformation; Organelle transformation; advantages; Direct transformation of plant systems using physical methods; Agrobacterium mediated plant transformation; manipulating gene expression in plants, selectable markers and reporter genes, Agrobacterium tumefaciens; Genetic elements present on the Ti plasmid, genetic engineering of the Ti plasmid, vectors used to introduce foreign DNA into plant cells- binary cloning vector, disarmed Ti plasmid, cointegrate cloning vector; comparison of methods for transfer of DNA to plants, manipulation of gene expression in plants; production of transgenic plants without reporter or marker genes. Application of plant transformation for productivity and performance; herbicide resistance; Insect resistance; Bt genes; long shelf life of fruits and flowers; molecular farming, benefits and risks; Transgene stability and gene silencing; Strategies to avoid gene silencing and improve gene expression in transgenic plants; ethics and plant genetic engineering; metabolic engineering and industrial products; plant secondary metabolites, control mechanisms and manipulations of phenylpropanoid pathway; alkaloids etc.