PLANT-CELL AND TISSUE-CULTURE - ALTERNATIVES FOR METABOLITE PRODUCTION

Plant cell culture systems represent a potential renewable source of v aluable medicinals, flavours,essences and colourants that cannot be pr oduced by microbial cells or chemical syntheses. However, only a few c ultures produce these compounds in commercially useful amounts, The lo w productivities are associated with our poor understanding of the bio chemistry of these systems, Recent advances in molecular biology, enzy mology, physiology and fermentation technology of plant cell cultures suggest that these systems will become a viable source of important na tural products, This review examines the sate of the art of production of medicinal plant secondary metabolites by plant cell cultures.