Abstract
Development of bioreactor systems utilizing plant suspension cultures has been hindered by the lack of on-line sensors for monitoring important process variables such as biomass concentration and aggregate size. An optical technique, the focused beam reflectance method (FBRM developed by Lasentec Inc., Redmond, WA), was used to characterize several plant suspension cultures: rice (Oryza sativa), tobacco (Nicotiana benthamiana) and wild Chinese cucumber (Trichosanthes kirilowii). These cultures differ in a number of respects such as individual cell size and morphology, aggregate shape and size distribution, initial culture density, and color. For plant suspensions comprised of relatively spherical aggregates (rice and cucumber), the area under the cube-weighted FBRM chord length distribution was linearly correlated to biomass concentration (R 2>0.99) while the mean of the cube-weighted FBRM chord length distribution was nonlinearly related to aggregate size.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Dixon RA (1986) Plant Cell Culture, A Practical Approach. Washington: IRL Press.
Fischer R,Emans N,Schuster F,Hellwig S,Drossard J (1999) Towards molecular farming in the future: using plant-cellsuspension cultures as bioreactors. Biotechnol. Appl. Biochem. 30: 109-112.
Jianfeng X,Zhiguo S,Pusun F (1998) Suspension culture of compact callus aggregate of Rhodiola sachalinensis for improved salidroside production. Enzyme Microbiol. Tech. 23: 20-27.
Kinnersley AM,Dougall DK (1980) Increase in anthocyanin yield from wild-carrot cell cultures by a selection system based on cellaggregate size. Planta 149: 200-204.
Pépin MF,Smith MAL,Reid JF (1999) Application of imaging tools to plant cell culture: relationship between plant cell aggregation and flavonoid production. In Vitro Cell Dev. Biol. 35: 290-295.
Richmond WR,Jones RL,Fawell PD (1998) The relationship between particle aggregation and rheology in mixed silica-titania suspensions. Chem. Eng. J. 71: 67-75.
Thompson JA,Abdullah R,Cocking EC (1986) Protoplast culture of rice (Oryza sativa, L) using media solidified with agarose. Plant Sci. 47: 123-133.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McDonald, K.A., Jackman, A.P. & Hurst, S. Characterization of plant suspension cultures using the focused beam reflectance technique. Biotechnology Letters 23, 317–324 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005646826204
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005646826204