In vitro anther culture is to inoculate the anthers with a certain stage of pollen development into the culture medium to change the development procedure of pollen grains in the anthers.

Divided into cell clusters, then differentiated into embryoids to form callus, and then differentiated from callus into small plants. Pollen culture in vitro refers to the technique of separating pollen from anthers and culturing it in vitro with a single pollen grain as explant.

Because pollen is also a unit somatic cell, it develops into a plant or haploid through callus or embryoid induction, and is not interfered by somatic cells such as anther connective, anther wall and filament.

In vitro anther culture is relatively easy and the technology is mature, but ultimately it is necessary to detect the chromosome multiple of the cultured plants.

There are usually two ways to obtain haploids from pollen:

1. Pollen dedifferentiates to form callus (i.e. parenchyma cell mass with low differentiation degree), and then the callus differentiates into roots and buds, and finally plants are formed.

2. Embryoids are formed by pollen division (embryos that are not developed from zygotes are called embryoids) and then grow into plants. When the seedlings grown in the anthers in the bottle reach a certain size, the temperature, humidity, light and other conditions should be adjusted to make the seedlings get exercise and gradually adapt to the natural environment.

Then take it out of the test tube and plant it in the soil for routine cultivation and management; Or wrapping the formed embryoid with artificial seed coat to make artificial seed.

The important application value of anther culture in vitro in breeding;

1. Haploid plants can obtain homozygous diploids by doubling chromosomes, which can shorten the years required for breeding.

2. Using haploid and its cells for mutation breeding, whether dominant mutation or recessive mutation occurs, can be displayed in the contemporary era, which is convenient for identification and selection. Then, the individuals with favorable mutation can be doubled to obtain genetically stable homozygous plants, thus accelerating the breeding process.

3. Using tissues, cells or protoplasts of haploid plants as the receptor of foreign gene transformation is beneficial to the integrated expression of foreign genes.

Reference: anther culture in vitro