Single Cell Protein (SCP)
- It is the protein derived from single-celled organisms.
- It is an alternate source of proteins for animal and human nutrition. Examples: Spirulina (a blue-green alga), Methylophilus methylotrophus (a bacterium).
- Spirulina is rich in protein, minerals, fats, carbohydrates, and vitamins. It is grown on materials like wastewater from potato processing plants, straw, molasses, animal manure, and sewage, which also reduces environmental pollution.
- A 250 kg cow produces only 200 g of protein per day, whereas 250 g of Methylophilus methylotrophus produces 25 tonnes of protein due to its high rate of biomass production and growth.
Tissue Culture
- A technique of growing plant cells, tissues, or organs in a sterile culture medium under controlled aseptic conditions.
- The ability to generate a whole plant from any cell or explant is called totipotency. An explant is any part of a plant grown in a test tube under sterile nutrient media.
- The nutrient medium must provide a carbon source (e.g., sucrose), inorganic salts, vitamins, amino acids, and growth regulators like auxins and cytokinins.
- The method of producing thousands of plants in a short time through tissue culture is called micropropagation.
- These plants are genetically identical to the original plant, i.e., they are somaclones.
- Examples include tomato, banana, and apple.
- Tissue culture is used to recover healthy plants from diseased plants. The meristem (virus-free) from an infected plant is removed and grown in vitro to obtain virus-free plants. Examples include meristems of banana, sugarcane, and potato.
- Somatic hybridization: The fusion of protoplasts from two different plant varieties with desirable characteristics to produce hybrid protoplasts, which can be grown into a new plant called somatic hybrids. Protoplasts are isolated after digesting the cell walls of plant cells.
Example: Protoplast of tomato + protoplast of potato → pomato. This hybrid plant has characteristics of both tomato and potato but lacks all desired characteristics for commercial utilization.
Select a Topic 👇
1. Animal Husbandry 2. Plant Breeding 3. Single Cell Proteins and Tissue Culture