Culture of Zygotic Embryos

Abstract

There is a profound difference in the historical development of plant tissue culture and that of embryo culture. Cultures of embryos preceded a long time before plant tissue culture. Tissue culture was definitely settled when two researchers Nobecourt and Gautheret, had the idea to supplement the medium with a hormone in 1937 [1, 2], but this addition had been delayed until Kogl et al. in 1934 discovered this hormone: indole-3-acetic acid [3]. The early beginning of immature embryo culture (1904) can be easily explained since the culture of embryos was achieved with a hormone-free medium containing only nutrients [4]. Comparing the two research developments, we must emphasize that embryo culture has been known for nearly a century and has slowly progressed with time while tissue culture, after a long period of limited progress, rapidly developed after 1937. From this date an explosion of discoveries has carried the technique all over the world, whereas embryo culture has kept the same steady pace in its advancement.