Plant Cell Cultures - An Alternative and Efficient Source for the Production of Biologically Important Secondary Metabolites

Plant cell culture systems represent a potential renewable source of valuable medicinal compounds, flavors, fragrances, and colorants, which cannot be produced by microbial cells or chemical synthesis. Biotechnological applications of plant cell cultures presents the most updated reviews on current techniques in plant culture in the field. The evolving commercial importance of the secondary metabolites has in recent years resulted in a great interest, in secondary metabolism, and particularly in the possibility to alter the production of bioactive plant metabolites by means of cell culture technology. The principle advantage of this technology is that it may provide continuous, reliable source of plant pharmaceuticals and could be used for the large-scale culture of plant cells from which these metabolites can be extracted. In addition to its importance in the discovery of new medicines, plant cell culture technology plays an even more significant role in solving world hunger by developing agricultural crops that provide both higher yield and more resistance to pathogens and adverse environmental and climatic conditions. This paper describes the callus and suspension culture methods that we have established in our laboratory for the production of bioactive secondary metabolites from medicinal plants.