ABSTRACT
Higher plants are a rich source for a wide variety of natural products. It has been estimated that over 90% of all natural products known are to be found in the plant kingdom. Plant cells have been demonstrated to express "totipotency" which means that any living nucleated parenchyma cell, independent of its location in situ, is capable of complete genetic expression. Investigations of immobilized plant cells, obtained from suspension cultures, were initiated to study the behavior of such cells in an environment mimicking in vivo conditions and in particular to study possible advantages of using immobilized plant cells for biosynthesis and biotransformation of valuable plant products. The utilization of immobilized plant cells may prove valuable in the development of such processes and therefore some studies on the biosynthetic capacity of immobilized plant cells have been initiated.
