Advanced Plant Biotechnology I

PTC lab, media preparation and handling, cell and plant culture, sterile techniques, totipotency, various plant tissue culture media and their composition. Micropropagation: organogenesis, somatic embryogenesis, axillary bud proliferation.                     

  Anther culture, mature and immature zygotic embryo culture, ovary culture, somaclonal and gametoclonal variations, triploid production, production of virus free plants. Tissue culture in germplasm conservation: Synthetic seeds, Cryopreservation.                                                                                                                                      

  Greenhouse Construction, types of greenhouses, environmental control inside a greenhouse. Soilless media for propagating and growing nursery plants. Media components: Sand, peat moss, cocopeat, vermiculite, pumice, perlite synthetic plastic aggregate and composts. Preplanting treatments of soil and soil mixes: heat treatments, fumigation and chemicals. 

 Biotransformation, factors affecting production of secondary metabolites, production of important drugs in culture- taxol, ginseng, morphine, codeine, vinblastine and vincristine, types of bioreactors (stirred tank, air lift, membrane type, immobilized cell bioreactors).

 Cutting and joining DNA molecules, cloning vectors: plasmids, cosmids, bacteriophage vectors, phagemids, YAC, shuttle vectors, expression vectors, gene cloning, direct DNA transfer: particle bombardment, electroporation, liposome mediated transformation, macroinjection; Agrobacterium mediated transformation of plants; in planta gene transfer.