Plants are used as the source of many useful compounds and mixtures including pharmaceuticals, flavors and fragrances, essential oils, enzymes, and pigments. Large markets exist for these secondary plant metabolites which are normally obtained by extraction from intact plants. Plant tissue culture (PTC) may provide an alternative to whole plants as biological sources of these useful compounds. PTC is a technique which allows plant cells to be grown in solid or liquid medium in the laboratory under carefully controlled environmental conditions. The purpose of this study is to develop a model system for studying the potential of strawberry cells grown in culture to produce flavors and pigments of interest to the food processing industry as natural food ingredients. The investigations will include the production of the anticarcinogenic compound, ellagic acid, by strawberry cell suspension cultures. Factors that influence the kinetics of growth and secondary metabolite production of strawberry cells will be systematically studied using suspension cultures propagated in roller bottle and low- shear cell culture bioreactors. Information obtained in this study will be applicable to other plant cell culture systems.
