The induction and maintenance of in vitro plant morphogenesis as viewed from a new perspective, with theoretical and constructive implications.

In plant tissue culture research, the non-traditional growth regulators, methylglyoxal and ascorbic acid, have been used to induce and promote in vitro morphogenesis from plant callus, generally having the initial characteristics of a type of neoplasm, and in many cases overcoming recalcitrant morphogenesis. In other investigations methylglyoxal, most likely with ascorbic acid, also promoted such morphogenesis. In the various investigations, low concentrations of methylglyoxal were used and proved to be the most effective in promoting in vitro morphogenesis. In many cases, the growth of such neoplastic-like calli was concurrently inhibited on culture media containing these chemicals. When methylglyoxal was present in high concentration, morphogenesis was also inhibited. Such chemicals, it would appear likely, allowed for the generation of cohesive forces within regions of the calli, reversing the neoplastic state in such regions, due to very low internal cohesion, and through such cohesive forces of particular magnitude, morphogenesis ensued, as an adaptive response to the stress of such cohesive forces. This would suggest a deeper, underlying biological process, with developmental features, that is perhaps universal among plants and perhaps in all biological organisms. This particular, consistent avenue and theme of plant tissue culture research, manifested over four decades and across four continents, may have revealed a unifying, dynamical process in both the biological and physical worlds, with constructive implications for agriculture and medicine.