Somatic cells of tissue cultures from freshly isolated carrot explants, and also from established callus strains, can be induced to form adventive embryos by manipulation of the medium.
The pathway
of development of these somatic embryos closely follows that taken by the fertilised egg cell in the embryo sac of the developing carrot seed, showing typical globular and torpedo stages. This phenomenon provides excellent proof for the totipotency of higher plant cells. Since this first demonstration of embryogenesis in carrot cultures there have been many examples of embryogenesis in cell cultures of other higher plants and the number of reports is still increasing.