Recent advances in plant cell biology

Since the late seventies, molecular biology has infiltrated into the field of plant sciences that aims at crop improvement through gene transfer. T. Hall and his contemporaries J. Schell and Van Montagu in Cologne and Ghent respectively, succeeded in gene transfer to higher plant cells through an improved vector-Ti-plasmid and obtained expression (1,2). A series of reports then appeared which were summarised in the 6th International Congress of Plant Tissue and Cell Culture held in Minneapolis in 1986 and also in the International Symposium of Plant Protoplasts held in Holland in 1987. This report will be restricted to the recent work of importance with emphasis on that being carried out in the Peoples Republic of China.