Aggregate cell suspension cultures of Psoralea corylifolia improved phytoestrogens production

Antioxidant and Anticancer Potential of Bioactive Compounds from Rhinacanthus nasutus Cell Suspension Culture

The potential benefits of natural plant extracts have received attention in recent years, encouraging the development of natural products that effectively treat various diseases. This is the first report on establishing callus and cell suspension cultures of Rhinacanthus nasutus (L.) Kurz. A yellow friable callus was successfully induced from in vitro leaf explants on Murashige and Skoog medium supplemented with 1 mg/L 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 1 mg/L 1-naphthalene acetic acid. A selected friable callus line was used to establish the cell suspension culture with the same medium. The antioxidant assays showed that the leaf- and ethanolic-suspension-cultured cell (SCC) extracts exhibited high antioxidant potential. In addition, the in vitro cytotoxicity revealed by the MTT assay demonstrated potent antiproliferative effects against the oral cancer cell lines ORL-48 and ORL-136 in a dose-dependent manner. Several groups of compounds, including terpenoids, phenolics, flavonoids, quinones, and stilbenes, were identified by UHPLC–QToF–MS, with the same compounds detected in leaf and SCC extracts, including austroinulin, lucidenic acid, esculetin, embelin, and quercetin 3-(2″-p-hydroxybenzoyl-4″-p-coumarylrhamnoside). The present study suggests the value of further investigations for phytochemical production using R. nasutus cell suspension culture.

Engineering Considerations to Produce Bioactive Compounds from Plant Cell Suspension Culture in Bioreactors

The large-scale production of plant-derived secondary metabolites (PDSM) in bioreactors to meet the increasing demand for bioactive compounds for the treatment and prevention of degenerative diseases is nowadays considered an engineering challenge due to the large number of operational factors that need to be considered during their design and scale-up. The plant cell suspension culture (CSC) has presented numerous benefits over other technologies, such as the conventional whole-plant extraction, not only for avoiding the overexploitation of plant species, but also for achieving better yields and having excellent scaling-up attributes. The selection of the bioreactor configuration depends on intrinsic cell culture properties and engineering considerations related to the effect of operating conditions on thermodynamics, kinetics, and transport phenomena, which together are essential for accomplishing the large-scale production of PDSM. To this end, this review, firstly, provides a comprehensive appraisement of PDSM, essentially those with demonstrated importance and utilization in pharmaceutical industries. Then, special attention is given to PDSM obtained out of CSC. Finally, engineering aspects related to the bioreactor configuration for CSC stating the effect of the operating conditions on kinetics and transport phenomena and, hence, on the cell viability and production of PDSM are presented accordingly. The engineering analysis of the reviewed bioreactor configurations for CSC will pave the way for future research focused on their scaling up, to produce high value-added PDSM.

A population balance model to modulate shear for the control of aggregation in Taxus suspension cultures

Cellular aggregation in plant suspension cultures directly affects the accumulation of high value products, such as paclitaxel from Taxus. Through application of mechanical shear by repeated, manual pipetting through a 10 ml pipet with a 1.6 mm aperture, the mean aggregate size of a Taxus culture can be reduced without affecting culture growth. When a constant level of mechanical shear was applied over eight generations, the sheared population was maintained at a mean aggregate diameter 194 μm lower than the unsheared control, but the mean aggregate size fluctuated by over 600 μm, indicating unpredictable culture variability. A population balance model was developed to interpret and predict disaggregation dynamics under mechanical shear. Adjustable parameters involved in the breakage frequency function of the population balance model were estimated by nonlinear optimization from experimentally measured size distributions. The optimized model predictions were in strong agreement with measured size distributions. The model was then used to determine the shear requirements to successfully reach a target aggregate size distribution. This model will be utilized in the future to maintain a culture with a constant size distribution with the goal of decreasing culture variability and increasing paclitaxel yields.