A typical medium for tissue culture contains the following important ingredients.

  1. Inorganic and organic nutrients
  2. Carbohydrate source (sugar)
  3. Vitamins
  4. Support for explant (usually agar)
  5. Hormones.

The most common culture medium formulation is MS (Murashige and Skoog), but other media have been customized for individual species.

photo of premade mixes for tissue culture

Media for tissue culture can be purchased as pre-made mixtures as pictured above, or they can be made from stock solutions of nutrients made from individual salts.