Plant Biotechnology

LABORATORY EXERCISE
Preparation of MS Medium from Stock Solutions

Introduction
Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) is the most suitable and most commonly used basic
tissue culture medium for plant regeneration from tissues and callus. It was developed by
Toshio Murashige and Folke K. Skoog in 1968; based primarily on the mineral analysis of
tobacco tissue. This is a “high salt” medium due to its content of K and N salts. Kiss et al.
(1995) indicated shoot proliferation of pineapple Ananas comosus was achieved on MS
medium with low levels of some inorganics and vitamin supplements. The shoots after
transfers to MS medium containing NAA or IBA gave good rooting. They also reported the in
vitro axillary bud formation on the etiolated shoots and their rooting on hormone-free MS
medium. Litchi, one of the important subtropical fruit crop of Southeast Asia, has been
successfully regenerated in vitro using cotyledon, hypocotyls, and root segments on MS
medium supplemented with 0.05 mg/L NAA, 0.05 mg/L 2-Ip, 0.2 mg/L ABA, and 45 g/l
sucrose (Chandra and Padaria, 1999).

Objectives
1. To improve how to prepare Murashige and Skoog (MS) culture medium.
2. To improve how to calculate quantity required from the stock solutions for a given
concentration and volume of MS medium.

Materials and Methods

Beakers (1000, 500, and 100 ml); graduated cylinders (1000, 500, and 100 ml); conical flasks
(100 ml); reagent bottles/Schott bottles (1000, 500, and 100 ml); micropipettes (1000 µl);
distilled water; magnetic stirrer; spatulas; chemical balance; weighing boat; tissue; pH
meter; aluminium foil; autoclave machine; and chemicals needed: stock solutions of
macronutrient; micronutrient; iron source; vitamins; plant growth regulators such as BAP
and NAA; sucrose; myo-inositol; agar; and NaOH and HCl to adjust pH.

Methodology
1. Five hundred millilitres of MS medium was made. The required volume of each stock
solution were calculated and obtained into 500 ml beaker on a magnetic stirrer.
2. 15 g sucrose and 0.05 g myo-inositol were added, and then stirred until fully dissolved.
3. The volume was adjusted to about 500 millilitres with distilled water.
4. 2 ml (2000 µl) of NAA was added (to get 4 mg/L NAA) then pH was adjusted to 5.75 ±
0.05 with NaOH and HCl.
5. 3.1 g of agar was added and stirred for complete mixing.
6. The medium was heated up in microwave oven to dissolve the agar.
7. Medium was transferred into 500 ml Schott bottle. Bottle was labelled before
autoclaving.
8. The culture medium was autoclaved for 15-20 min at 121°C.
9. After autoclaved, medium was distributed approximately 20 ml to each sterile
disposable petri dishes in the laminar air flow and medium are allowed to solidify
followed by exposing to UV light for 20 minutes and stored for use.

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Results
Calculation for preparation of 500 ml MS medium from stock solutions
Formula - M1V1 = M2V2
M1 = Concentration of the stock
V1 = Volume will be taken from the stock (x)
M2 = Concentration of MS medium
V2 = Volume of medium = 500 mL

Amount taken for

Component Calculation
500 ml MS medium
M1V1 = M2V2
(10) (x) = (1) (500 mL)
Macronutrient 50 mL
x = 500/10
= 50 mL from stock
M1V1 = M2V2
(1000) (x) = (1) (500 mL)
Micronutrient 0.5 mL
x = 500/1000
= 0.5 mL from stock
M1V1 = M2V2
(100) (x) = (1) (500 mL)
Ferum/iron source 5 mL
x = 500/100
= 5 mL from stock
M1V1 = M2V2
(1000) (x) = (1) (500 mL)
Vitamin 0.5 mL
x = 500/1000
= 0.5 mL from stock
M1V1 = M2V2
(1000) (x) = (4) (500mL)
NAA 2 mL
x = 2000/1000
= 2 mL from stock

Discussion
Comparing MS medium with other culture medium
MS medium - one of the most successful media - was formulated by analyzing the inorganic
components in tobacco plants and then adding them to medium in amounts similar to those
found in the plants. It has comparatively high salt levels compared to White’s medium
(White, 1963) but lower than B5 medium (Gamborg et al., 1968). The type of tissue culture
medium selected depends on the species to be cultured. According to Andreu and Marin
(2005), WPM was the medium that promoted a better establishment of the Prunus insititia
cultures, but MS supported higher multiplication rates. In contrast, MS was better than
WPM for both explant establishment and multiplication of chokecherry Prunus virginiana
(Zhang et al., 2000), and mature wild cherry (Hammatt and Grant, 1997)

Carbon sources
In tissue culture, plants lose their ability to synthesize their own food, thus they depend on
external factors to make energy. Sucrose as a carbon source is known to be the best. This is
because it is cheap and easily available. Added to that, sucrose can be autoclaved along with

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the media, which is preferred over filter sterilization. Sucrose hydrolyses during autoclaving
into more efficiently utilized energy source, such as fructose and glucose. Sucrose is
essential for various metabolic activities. It is needed for differentiation of xylem and
phloem in cultured cells. Sucrose is cheaper than glucose and has a more positive water
potential.

However sucrose hydrolysis during autoclaving is dependant on pH factors, and it does not
occur at pH settings of 6.0 (George et al., 2007). Sucrose is less effective for monocot plants
(Bhojwani and Razdan, 1996). Sucrose can also pose as a limiting factor to growth in certain
cultures. The presence of sucrose in the media specifically inhibits chlorophyll formation and
photosynthesis, thus it endures a less feasible autotrophic condition. Sucrose may not
promote organogenesis as good as glucose.

Alternative types of carbon source available; respectively in decreasing order are glucose,
maltose and raffinose. Fructose is less effective and mannose and lactose were the least
suitable. Other types of carbon source are galactose, cellobiose, melibiose, and trehalose,
but these carbon source show inferior results as compared to sucrose.

Agar
Agar is the most commonly used gelling agent. When agar is mixed with liquid, it forms a gel
that melts at about 100°C and solidifies at about 45°C. It is highly stable, clear, non-toxic and
resistance to metabolism during culture (Henderson and Kinnersley, 1988; Sahay, 1999). All
agars contain impurities, such as inorganic salts, organic compounds, phenolics, and long
chain fatty acids: amounts and types vary depending on the manufacturer. Interactions
were found between agar performance and plant species and regeneration processes. Agar
quality could affect, in principle, all developmental processes, where the regeneration of
adventitious shoots and roots being the most sensitive (Scholten and Pierik, 1998).

The concentration of agar may be critical to plant response in culture. Stoltz (1971)
described the effects of concentrations of agar on the growth of mature Iris embryos.
Somatic embryos of Picea (Tremblay and Tremblay, 1991), shoot apical meristems of Picea
(Romberger and Tabor, 1971), protoplasts of red cabbage (Koda et al., 1988), and anther
cultures of tobacco (Kohlenbach and Wernicke, 1978) have been shown to be sensitive to
agar quality. The agar concentrations commonly used in plant culture media range between
0.5% and 1%.

Scholten and Pierik (1998) reported that no relationship could be found between the price
and quality of the agars. The performance of agars can be improved by washing agars
before use (Shillito et al., 1983)

When greater purity is needed, agarose may be used. Because of the additional purification
(Johansson, 1988), agarose is considerably more expensive than agar (Kao, 1981). Medium
solidified with Gelrite has the advantage of being clear, which agar-solidified medium is not.
Consequently contamination is more easily detected at an early stage (Anonymous, 2006a).
Gelrite requires more stirring than agar when being added to media. Phytagel is an agar
substitute produced from a bacterial substrate but results in clumping. Therefore, to

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prevent clumping, phytagel should be added to rapidly stirring culture medium at room
temperature (Anonymous, 2006b)

The selection of a gelling agent for specific plants is generally empirical. For unknown
reasons, tissues of some species grow more vigorously on one gelling agent than on
another. Podwyszynska (1994), who done a research on species belonging to the Araceae
and Liliaceae families - e.g. Homalomena sp. and Cordyline sp.; described that
macroelements availability and uptake depends on the gelling agent and varies between
species. However, gelling agent did not influence the multiplication rate of any species
significantly (Podwyszynska and Olszewski, 1995).

Myo-inositol
Myo-inositol, is the only one of the nine thereotical stereoisomers of inositol has significant
biological importance. It has been classed as the member of Vitamin-B complex and is
required for the growth of cells in tissue culture. Myo-inositol has been classified as plant
“vitamin”. Several research states that presence of myo-inositol in culture media initiates
the cell division process. For example, Kaul and Sabharwal (1975) states that formation of
shoot buds on the callus of Haworthia spp. was shown to be dependant on the availability of
myo-inositol.

Adjusting pH
Adjusting of pH is necessary for the addition of agar. This is necessary for the agar to set
properly. At pH below 5.5 the agar will not gelled properly while at above 6.0, the agar will
become too firm (Debergh, 1983). Also the required pH is necessary to support different
phases of growth and differentiation. pH was adjusted by adding NaOH or HCL.

Conclusion
From this experiment, we become aware and understood on how to improve preparation of
MS medium and the significance of each component in MS medium.

References
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