Bioreactor Technology for In Vitro Berry Plant Cultivation

Recent applications of plant cell culture technology in cosmetics and foods

“…Different plant tissues and organs can be isolated and cultivated under a controlled aseptic environment which supports their fast growth and maintains high levels of cell differentiation and tissue organization [6, 28, 29]. This involves in vitro cultivation of seedlings, stem cuttings, nodal segments, shoots, normal, adventitious or transformed “hairy” roots, somatic embryos, etc., widely known as differentiated plant in vitro systems.…”

“…In contrast to undifferentiated plant in vitro systems, differentiated cultures are characterized by better genetic and biosynthetic stabilities and ability to produce and accumulate higher concentrations of certain specific metabolites whose biosynthesis occurs in specific plant tissues [6, 29‐31]. On the other hand, mass propagation of differentiated plant in vitro cultures is a costly and laborious process which requires specialized and expensive equipment [28, 32, 33]. Moreover, where the target products obtained by cultivation of differentiated plant in vitro cultures are intended for use as food or cosmetic ingredients, the fast growing transformed “hairy” root cultures are not recommended as a choice for production systems because of customers’ concerns about their “natural” status and safety [34].…”

“…To be cost‐effective, commercial production of plant cells or tissue biomass requires scale‐up of the process to the necessary volumes which can ensure a continuous supply. In this aspect, various bioreactor systems modified for growing undifferentiated or differentiated plant in vitro cultures can be adopted [28, 31–33, 35]. It is important to note that if the products are intended to be used in cosmetics, cultivation could be performed in small or medium volume bioreactors, or even in a solid medium (in multiple containers) or in small volumes agitated liquid medium (in multiple shaking flasks), whereas, if foods are the target market, cultivation should be conducted in large volume vessels.…”

“…Obviously, different types of bioreactors need to be implemented depending on the type of in vitro system and the nature of the ingredient produced. However, for optimizing the initial investment made in the equipment, disposable bioreactors as well as unconventional decisions such as temporary immersion systems should be considered [14, 28, 31, 33–35, 38, 39].…”