Plant Tissue Culture

Micropropagation can be defined as growing plants from seed or small pieces of tissue under sterile conditions in a laboratory on specially selected environment. The starting point for all tissue cultures is plant tissue, called an explants. It can be initiated from any part of a plant such as root, stem, petiole, leaf or flower. It is essential  that the surface of  the explants is sterilised to remove all microbial contamination. The explants is then incubated on a sterile nutrient medium to initiate the tissue culture. The growth medium has to supply all the essential mineral ions required for growth and development.

In tissue culture lab of Melaka Institute of Biotechnology, there are few projects have been set-up mainly  in Micropropagation of Medicinal & Aromatic plants, Micropropagation or Ornamental plants and Micropropagation of Orchids.

With growing interest in medicinal plants as sources of new pharmaceutical products and the increasing demand for herbal products in Malaysia, it’s expected that the demand for row materials will also increase.  Lately, the demand for natural aromatic resources is increasing in the international essential oil market. Essential oil, which is obtained from the bark, leaves, flowers and fruits are natural sources for fragrance, flavours , spices and medicine. Plant tissue culture has significantly contributed many biotechnologies especially for multiplication plants those are having difficulty in their natural propagation and for plant conservation.

In our plant tissue culture laboratory, we have establish the commercial ready micropropagation procedures and protocols for 23 plants  such as Misai, Sambung Nyawa, Hempedu Bumi, Kacip Fatimah, Senduduk putih, Variation of Banana and Ornamental plants such as Carnation, Coleus, Sundal Malam and Variation  of Orchids. Using our established commercial ready procedures and protocols, Invitrotech Sdn.Bhd is producing and offering plantlets of above mentioned plants on commercial scale. The success of our previous projects demonstrates our technical capabilities to develop a prototype  micropropagation process for the production plantlets of our interest.