Biotechnology Methods / Tissue Culture Techniques
Safety in Plant Tissue Culture
- Sterile tissue culture technique eliminates or almost eliminates the danger
of loose seeds, pollen broadcast, vegetative escape, etc.
- Bamboo is unlikely to cause gene flow due to long intervals between
flowering.
- Handling and growing cultures inside a locked and filtered plastic box
isolates the organisms from infection and prevents escape.
- Choosing clumping bamboos limits the possibilities of vegetative escape,
even if planted in the ground.
Therefore, looking at standard practices for biosafety level 1-P:
- A locked apartment door and secure windows are more than enough
access restriction, in this case.
- You can inform yourself of hazards and safeguards.
- Given an organism with low potential for gene flow, the procedures are
more than adequate.
- No special containment is required other than keeping cultures inside the
plastic glove box/growing chamber. If removed, they can be sealed inside
a small plastic carrying box that is passed into the chamber using aseptic
procedures.
- Records can be kept in a lab notebook.
- Supplies can be sterilized as they are passed into the glove box/growing
chamber and sterilized again as they are passed out.
- All organisms can be inactivated by placing them inside a pressure cooker,
which is sealed before removal from the chamber. The pressure cooker is
not unsealed until after an adequate processing time.
- Maintenance in tissue culture and inactivation through pressure cooking
provide adequate pest control.
- Since there will be no motile organisms, sterile tissue culture is adequate
containment.
- Given the built-in safety of sterile tissue culture and the organisms selected
no signage is needed.
- Working inside an air-tight glove box minimizes the creation of aerosols.
- Use of gloves eliminates the need for special clothing. Hand washing
before and after procedures is adequate.
- Any accidents and cleanup procedures can be recorded in a lab notebook.
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