Application of Photoautotrophic Suspension Cultures in Plant Science

Abstract

Whereas most plant suspension cultures are grown heterotrophically in the presence of sugars, a limited number of photoautotrophic cultures have been established which are able to grow with CO2 as the sole carbon source. Photoautotrophic cultures are useful to address various aspects of photosynthesis, source-sink regulation, nitrogen metabolism, production of secondary metabolites, and defence responses. The homogenous populations of these cultures provide an ideal and sensitive system to obtain reproducible results. The availability of an increasing number of photoautotrophic cultures from different economically important species provides the basis also for practical applications.