Reversible, cell-heritable changes during the development of tobacco pith tissues

Cytokinin requiring cells of Nicotiana tabacum L. cv "Havana 425" can be induced in culture to become cytokinin autotrophic. This process is known as cytokinin habituation. Earlier we showed that pith parenchyma tissue consists of inducible cells, which habituate at high rates when treated with cytokinin, and noninducible cells, which remain cytokinin requiring under these conditions. The inducible and noninducible phenotypes are determined states that arise during the development of the tobacco plant and are inherited by individual cells. Here we show that pith tissue of plants regenerated from cloned lines of noninducible cells exhibits the inducible phenotype indicating that noninducible cells, or their descendants, can become inducible. This change in competence for habituation appears to have an epigenetic basis; it is reversible, occurs at high rates, and depends on the developmental state of the cells. The habituated state occurs in two forms that can be distinguished by their difference in developmental potential. Habituated cells derived from inducible pith cells give rise to normal plants whose leaf and pith tissues require cytokinin for growth in culture. In contrast, habituated cells obtained by transferring noninducible cells on media with progressively lower cytokinin concentrations give rise to plants whose leaf and pith tissues exhibit a cytokinin-habituated phenotype in culture.