Subject: How does a plant callus cell differ from a plant cell?

When I first submitted this question, it was suggested that I look in medline. Well, I did, and in Agricola, and I asked my plant phys teacher and read a ton of papers and the upshot of all this work is: I still don't know. I have small snippets of info like: a callus has more starch (because it is putting its energy into duplication rather than enlargement?) a callus cell is more likely to have extra nuclei (?), one can add extra genetic material to a callus cell more easily than a differentiated plant cell, sometimes callus will regenerate into plants. I also know what sort of hormonal mix will encourage callus formation. But why? What is it that the auxin is affecting?

I suspect that plant geneticists just use calli without really understanding what is going on - which makes me more interested than before. But I am really only a small cog, you know - I don't have the wherewithal to investigate this problem in a lab. Yours, Celia Beamish

Re: How does a plant callus cell differ from a plant cell?