Pioneers in plant tissue culture -3

1. PIONEERS IN PLANT TISSUE CULTURE
ERHARDKRANZ (1916-1973)
SATISHC.MAHESHWARI (Born 1933)
SIPRAGUHA-MUKHERJEE (1938-2007)
ARMINC.BRAUN (1911-1986)
MARY-DELLCHILTON (Born 1939)
MarcVanMontaguandJozefSchell
Based on his extensive studies on crown gall tissue culture, Braun (1947) suggested that
probably during infection the bacterium introduces a tumor-inducing principle into the plant
genome. 1947—Braun proposed the concept of tumor inducing principal (TiP) of Agrobacterium
tumefaciens responsible for autonomous growth of crown gall tissue. 1950—Braun
demonstrated that Ti principal in Agrobacterium tumefaciens is transferred to plant genome
naturally.
In 1964, the Delhi school made another major discovery when Guha and Maheshwari
demonstrated that in anther cultures of Datura innoxia the microspores (immature pollen)
could be induced to form sporophytes (androgenesis). Prof. Sipra Guha Mukherjee worked
on regeneration of plants and mechanism of regeneration involving various enzymes,
membrane phospholipids and second messengers at school of life sciences,
J.N. University, at New Delhi
.
JSchell and Marc van Montagu were a pioneer in genetics who focused on the interaction
between plants and soil bacteria. Along with his colleague, Marc Van Montagu, Jeff Schell
discovered the gene transfer mechanism between Agrobacterium and plants, which resulted
in the development of methods to alter Agrobacterium into an efficient delivery system for
gene engineering in plants. Besides being a prominent scientist, in 1982 he co-founded,
with Marc Van Montagu, the successful biotech company Plant Genetic Systems Inc.,
now part of Bayer CropScience.
Kranz et al. (1990) reported a major breakthrough when they electrofused isolated male and
female gametes of maize and 3 years later regenerated fertile plants from the in vitro formed
zygotes (Kranz and Lörz 1993).
Plant tissue culture studies led to the demonstration for the first time of the development
of haploids through anther and pollen culture by Sipra Guha and Maheshwari, S.C. (1964-67).
This research finds many applications in crop and tree breeding programmes, being a quicker
and simpler method of producing homozygous lines than conventional breeding programme.
Professor S.C. Maheshwari was working in the Botany Department of Delhi University. Later on
he joined the newly formed department of Molecular biology of Delhi University at South
Campus. He contributed significantly in the development of these departments in the University.
Chilton was the first (1977) to demonstrate the presence of a fragment of Agrobacterium
Ti plasmid DNA in the nuclear DNA of crown gall tissue. Her research on Agrobacterium also
showed that the genes responsible for causing disease could be removed from the bacterium
without adversely affecting its ability to insert its own DNA into plant cells and modify the
plant's genome. Chilton described what she had done as disarming the bacterial plasmid
responsible for the DNA transfer. She and her collaborators produced the first genetically
modified plants using Agrobacterium carrying the disarmed Ti plasmid (1983). She is a
Distinguished Science Fellow at Syngenta Biotechnology, Inc.