Abstract
Pith parenchyma tissues of tobacco sometimes lose their exogenous requirement for a cell division factor such as the cytokinin, kinetin. This process, known as cytokinin habituation, appears to involve epigenetic changes since it is a heritable change in cell phenotype which is directed, regularly reversible, and leaves the cell totipotent. In this report, we show that pith cells in culture consist of at least two types of cytokinin-requiring cells. The first type habituates rapidly under inductive conditions. The second type continues to express the cytokinin-requiring phenotype for many cell generations in culture but retains the capacity for habituation. These findings suggest that pith cells differ in their competence to habituate and that different states of competence are inherited by individual cells.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have