Sterilization in Tissue Culture: Why it's Essential for 12th Grade Students

[gracy]

why sterilization is so much important in tissue culture?i watched several video on tissue culture most of the time during tissue culture sterilization is done ,why?i am 12th grade student.

 

[Simon Bridge]

At 12th grade you should be able to come up with some ideas for yourself.
Why do we normally want to sterilize stuff?
What are tissue cultures usually used for? Why are they made?

Note: you don't normally want to sterilize the culture - because that would kill it.
When and what gets sterilized?

When you start thinking thrugh the related questions you'll find your mind gets more powerful.

 

[gracy]

At 12th grade you should be able to come up with some ideas for yourself.
Why do we normally want to sterilize stuff?
What are tissue cultures usually used for? Why are they made?

Note: you don't normally want to sterilize the culture - because that would kill it.
When and what gets sterilized?

When you start thinking thrugh the related questions you'll find your mind gets more powerful.

ideas do come but someone must be there to verify and correct it.and there is no age nor the class when it comes to asking a question.

 

[Simon Bridge]

ideas do come but someone must be there to verify and correct it.and there is no age nor the class when it comes to asking a question.

If you do not share you ideas, then nobody can verify or correct them - also your ideas give us clues how to best guide you.
If you do not answer questions, nobody can help you.

Note: you are training to be able to solve problems that nobody knows the right answers to.
Who will you ask then?

The only way is to share your ideas and risk being shown to be wrong.
Best practice now, while it is possible for errors to be corrected.

 

[gracy]

If you do not share you ideas, then nobody can verify or correct them - also your ideas give us clues how to best guide you.
If you do not answer questions, nobody can help you.

Note: you are training to be able to solve problems that nobody knows the right answers to.
Who will you ask then?

The only way is to share your ideas and risk being shown to be wrong.
Best practice now, while it is possible for errors to be corrected.

i learned a lesson today i will do my best to explain and present my views and you respected teachers/mentors will then guide me .right?

 

[Simon Bridge]

i learned a lesson today i will do my best to explain and present my views and you respected teachers/mentors will then guide me .right?

That's how it works :)

Don't worry, we've all been through this same process so we all understand what it's like when you are starting out.
So:

Why do we normally want to sterilize stuff?
What are tissue cultures usually used for? Why are they made?

Note: you don't normally want to sterilize the culture - because that would kill it.
When and what gets sterilized?

 

[gracy]

That's how it works :)

Don't worry, we've all been through this same process so we all understand what it's like when you are starting out.
So:

Why do we normally want to sterilize stuff?
What are tissue cultures usually used for? Why are they made?

Note: you don't normally want to sterilize the culture - because that would kill it.
When and what gets sterilized?

we want to sterilize stuff to make it free from bacteria,fungi ,virus etc.tissue culture is used to produce many plants from single cell / tissues .so that we can make millions of plants which are at the risk of extinction.we sterilize forceps,vessels and explants etc.i have given answers but i don't think it is perfect.please make it perfect.

 

[Simon Bridge]

Bear in mind that there is no such thing as "perfect". What is it about your answer that you feel is lacking?

It's pretty good ... short form: you want to make sure that you only grow the tissue you have in mind.

That's basically the bottom line. If you think about all the sorts of stuff you don't want to grow along with the tissue you want, you'll get the idea.
Especially consider if the tissue is, say, skin cells to be administered to a burn victim ... can you see why sterilization is important there?

 

[gracy]

Bear in mind that there is no such thing as "perfect". What is it about your answer that you feel is lacking?

It's pretty good ... short form: you want to make sure that you only grow the tissue you have in mind.

That's basically the bottom line. If you think about all the sorts of stuff you don't want to grow along with the tissue you want, you'll get the idea.
Especially consider if the tissue is, say, skin cells to be administered to a burn victim ... can you see why sterilization is important there?

i think sterilization is important there if in case a burn victim gets skin allergy when sterilization is not done.

 

[Simon Bridge]

Your skin is the first line of defense against disease - burn victims don't have any (over the wound) so they are extremely vulnerable to infection. If the skin cells intended for a patient are not cultivated in a sterile environment, then they may become contaminated by harmful bacteria which would then be sprayed on the patient's raw unprotected flesh significantly reducing the chance of survival. The process of growing the cells would also grow the harmful bacteria, and anything else, magnifying the effect over normal exposure such as through the air.

There is also the case where the tissue is intended to be used as part of a sensitive experiment - the possibility that measurements performed may be thrown off by contaminants can invalidate the work. Or maybe the culture forms part of a criminal investigation - one side or the other, at court, may try to have the results thrown out and one way to do that is to show that the sample had been contaminated.

It's possible to scare yourself thinking about this stuff.

 

[gracy]

Your skin is the first line of defense against disease - burn victims don't have any (over the wound) so they are extremely vulnerable to infection. If the skin cells intended for a patient are not cultivated in a sterile environment, then they may become contaminated by harmful bacteria which would then be sprayed on the patient's raw unprotected flesh significantly reducing the chance of survival. The process of growing the cells would also grow the harmful bacteria, and anything else, magnifying the effect over normal exposure such as through the air.

There is also the case where the tissue is intended to be used as part of a sensitive experiment - the possibility that measurements performed may be thrown off by contaminants can invalidate the work. Or maybe the culture forms part of a criminal investigation - one side or the other, at court, may try to have the results thrown out and one way to do that is to show that the sample had been contaminated.

It's possible to scare yourself thinking about this stuff.

thanks.one reason i think why sterilization is done in tissue culture can be the plant which are produced by tissue culture would be genetically disease free and so progenies produced by them would also be disease free at least free from disease caused by bacteria,virus,fungi.so we will get healthier plants,crops.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

It is also the case that bacteria and fungi often grow much faster than the tissues of interest (either animal or plant), so if you have bacterial or fungal contaminants, they will out compete your cells of interest and use up most of the resources in the culture.

 

[Simon Bridge]

one reason i think why sterilization is done in tissue culture can be the plant which are produced by tissue culture would be genetically disease free and so progenies produced by them would also be disease free at least free from disease caused by bacteria,virus,fungi.so we will get healthier plants,crops.

Certainly if you are genetically manipulating a plant, you want to make sure that the first generation grown does not have it's genes further modified by contamination.
However, there are bigger issues like Ygggdrasil points out.
You want to make sure the resources go to where they are most profitable - it is easier and safer to keep the competing flora and fauna out from the start than it is to weed them out after you can see them. Basically the sterile conditions are like the reason gardeners put weedmat down.
What counts as a weed is relative - so if you are trying to grow a special fungus, you don't want other kinds of fungus in there messing with the experiment and costing you money, and you certainly don't want the tomato plants from the lab next door... and they don't want your fungus.
A lot of the reasons for doing things in a lab are pretty basic like that.

 

[gracy]

Certainly if you are genetically manipulating a plant, you want to make sure that the first generation grown does not have it's genes further modified by contamination.
However, there are bigger issues like Ygggdrasil points out.
You want to make sure the resources go to where they are most profitable - it is easier and safer to keep the competing flora and fauna out from the start than it is to weed them out after you can see them. Basically the sterile conditions are like the reason gardeners put weedmat down.
What counts as a weed is relative - so if you are trying to grow a special fungus, you don't want other kinds of fungus in there messing with the experiment and costing you money, and you certainly don't want the tomato plants from the lab next door... and they don't want your fungus.
A lot of the reasons for doing things in a lab are pretty basic like that.

advantages of suspension culture?My textbook says Suspension cultures are widely used in the derivation of secondary metabolites.why can't other types of tissue culture be used for this purpose?is it something to do with liquid medium of suspension culture?
other advantage was given that we can obtain cell biomass production which is used for biochemical isolation .I don't have any idea about this use.please guide me.

 

[Simon Bridge]

What do you think?

 

[gracy]

What do you think?

My textbook says Suspension cultures are widely used in the derivation of secondary metabolites.why can't other types of tissue culture be used for this purpose?i think it is something to do with liquid medium of suspension culture.
other advantage was given that we can obtain cell biomass production which is used for biochemical isolation .I don't have any idea about this one.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Suspension cultures allow you to grow cells to a greater density than adherent cultures (because cells are confined the 2D surface on the bottom of the flask). Because you get higher cell densities, you'll have more cells producing metabolites or more cells to harvest for for biomaterial production.