ABSTRACT
Plant cell culture technology facilitates the production of valuable plant material and phytochemicals under controlled and reproducible conditions; operation is independent of the geographical and climatic constraints of conventional crop cultivation. Plant cell cultures have traditionally been valued as a source of naturally occurring primary and secondary metabolites, for use in medicinal, food and cosmetic products (Sahai, 1994). They have been employed for biotransformations (Yokoyama, 1996) and it has been established that they can be used for the production of heterologous proteins (Franken et
al., 1997). Table 14.1 summarises current commercial/near commercial processes involving plant cell suspensions.
