E-Book Overview
The recent achievements in engineering studies on plant cell cultures are reviewed, included are the gas concentration effects and bioprocess integration for the enhanced productivity of plant secondary metabolites. The metabolic engineering of plant secondary metabolite pathways and recombinant protein production from genetically modified plant cells are introduced. Large-scale plant micropropagation via somatic embryogenesis and hairy roots is discussed for efficient propagation of desease-free, genetically uniform and massive amounts of plants in vitro in massive amounts. Characterization and application of hairy plant roots endowed with photosynthetic functions is also covered in this special volume.
E-Book Content
00-Titelei 02.07.2001 9:59 Uhr Seite IX
(Schwarz/Process Black Bogen)
Preface
Plants produce more than 30,000 types of chemicals, including pharmaceuticals, pigments and other fine chemicals, which is four times more than those obtained from microbes. Plant cell culture has been receiving great attention as an alternative for the production of valuable plant-derived secondary metabolites, since it has many advantages over whole plant cultivation. However, much more research is required to enhance the culture productivity and reduce the processing costs, which is the key to the commercialization of plant cell culture processes. The recent achievements in related biochemical engineering studies are reviewed in Chapter 1. The effect of gaseous compounds on plant cell behavior has been little studied, and Chapter 2 focuses on these gas concentration effects (including oxygen, carbon dioxide, ethylene and others, such as volatile hormones like methyl jasmonate) on secondary metabolite production by plant cell cultures. Two metabolites of current interest, i.e., the antimalarial artemisinin (known as “qing hao su” in China) that is produc