Importance and Potential of Plant Cell Cultures

Plants play a very important part in our lives. From time immemorial, mankind has been reliant on plants for food and shelter. Plants have also been known as an important source of secondary metabolites. These secondary metabolites have immense importance in various fields like pharmaceutical, biopesticides, agrochemicals etc. Plants have been known to provide innumerable medicinal drugs [1, 2].
Cell culture of plants is an appealing substitute for the whole plant for producing these highly useful secondary metabolites. This is because of the totipotent nature of plants. This simply means that a plant cell culture has all the genetic information retained in it and hence can produce the collection of chemicals found in the parent plant. This

Natural affinity between cells and the surface may lead to adsorption, adhesion or agglutination. Alternatively, cross-linkers can be used to form intracellular connection. Also, sometimes, mixing with suitable materials help in immobilization of cells. This technique gets the cells embedded in bead like structures. It is important to choose a suitable surface or material for immobilization of cells. The choice generally depends on material properties. A polymer material available in large quantities and cheap, inert and nontoxic would make a good system. Also, the material should be able to carry a lot of biomass.
Below, different methods used for immobilization are explained:
Gel Entrapment Methods
Gel entrapment has been the most favored technique of cell immobilization for plant cell cultures. A porous material is generally used for cell entrapment. Calcium alginate is a prevalent material for gel entrapment methods. Cells might either be allowed to seep deep inside or the porous material may be formed in the culture itself. Gel entrapment methods ensure that the