Mammalian embryo biotechnology with multiple applications in reproductive and therapeutic medicine has been summarized in this review article. Risk factors at the molecular, genetic and chromosomal level that profoundly influence the outcome of reproductive cloning have been included for serious considerations. Interspecies embryo cloning has turned out to be a unique bioassay to reveal the emb...

An efficient in vitro protocol for plant production of North American ginseng has been established. The pretreatment of cotyledon explants with 1.0 M sucrose at 4◦C resulted in an improvement of embryo quality and, combined with a higher sucrose content (7%) in induction medium, improved the embryogenesis frequency from 40% to 75% and the number of embryos per explant from 10 to 21. The frequen...

The early somatic blastomeres founding the tissues in the C. elegans embryo are derived in a stem-cell-like lineage from the P cells. We have isolated maternal effect lethal mutations defining the gene cib-1 in which the P cells, P1-P3, skip a cell cycle and acquire the fates of only their somatic daughters. Therefore, the cib-1 gene is required for the specification of the stem-cell-like fate ...

Early events in embryo development are critical for the plant body formation. During this phase the apical-basal axis, the radial symmetry, and the primary meristems are specified. The shoot apical meristem (SAM) and the root apical meristem (RAM) will subsequently give rise to all above-ground and below-ground tissues. Despite the environmental and economical importance of conifers, the regula...

Background Somatic embryogenesis (SE) is the only clonal propagation method that has potential for large scale production of elite conifer plants from the breeding programs. Methods that support bioreactor-based methods for SE propagation are developed [1,2]. Samples of somatic embryos can be stored indefinitely under liquid nitrogen for future plant production. Somatic embryo cultures are also...

Embryogenic callus was obtained from mature seed explants on medium supplemented with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. Primary somatic embryos (SEs) can only develop into abnormal plants. Well-developed SEs could be obtained through secondary somatic embryogenesis both in solid and liquid cultures. Temperature strongly affected induction frequency of secondary embryogenesis. Relatively high temp...

Somatic embryogenesis is one of good examples of the basic research for plant embryo development as well as an important technique for plant biotechnology such as medicinally important plants. Single embryos develop into normal plantlets with shoots and roots. Therefore, direct single embryogenesis derived from single cells is highly important for normal plant regeneration. Here we demonstrate ...

The application of tissue culture techniques, particularly in the area of embryo rescue, has had a major impact on the maintenance and development of hybrid embryo from wide crosses. Embryo rescue techniques are directed towards obtaining more efficient survival of embryos in situations where very immature embryos are to be cultured. An in vitro embryo rescue culture technique has been develope...

Plant cells have the capacity to generate a new plant without egg fertilization by a process known as somatic embryogenesis (SE), in which differentiated somatic cells can form somatic embryos able to generate a functional plant. Although there have been advances in understanding the genetic basis of SE, the epigenetic mechanism that regulates this process is still unknown. Here, we show that t...

The early events in plant embryogenesis are critical for pattern formation, since it is during this process that the primary apical meristems and the embryo polarity axis are established. However, little is known about the molecular events that are unique to the early stages of embryogenesis. This study of gene expression during plant embryogenesis is focused on identifying molecular markers fr...