Business Potential for Agricultural Biotechnology - Asian Productivity ...

Business Potential for Agricultural Biotechnology Products
and Ravishankar, 2002; Mulabagal and Tsay, 2004). Therefore, it is highly recommended that
root culture be used for the cultivation of diverse medicinal plants. Root culture, however, had
been considered very difficult for a long time because the roots were known to form ball-like aggregates
during cultivation in bioreactors. This ball structure usually hinders the insides of the
tissue mass from being properly nourished by nutrients and thus causes the browning of the
inside.
In this mini-review, a system that enabled successful utilization of an industrial-scale bioreactor
for the commercial production of ginseng roots was briefly described. This bioreactor
system holds a promising future for many commercial applications, such as the large-scale production
of diverse secondary metabolites from plant tissues.
REFERENCES
Choi S.M., Son S.H., Yun S.R., Kwon O.W., Seon J.H., and Paek K.-Y. Pilot-scale culture of
adventitious roots of ginseng in a bioreactor system. Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture
2000; 62: 187–193.
Hadacek F. Secondary metabolites as plant traits: Current assessment and future perspectives.
Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences 2002; 21(4): 273–322.
Kiefer D., Pantuso T. Panax ginseng. American Family Physician 2003; 68(8): 1539–1542.
Mulabagal V., Tsay H.-S. Plant cell cultures: An alternative and efficient source for the production
of biologically important secondary metabolites. International Journal of Applied
Science and Engineering 2004; 1: 29–48.
Paek K.-Y., Haha E.-J., Son S.H. Application of bioreactors for large-scale micropropagation
system of plants. In Vitro Cellular and Development Biology—Plant 2001; 149–157.
Rao S.R., Ravishankar G.A. Plant cell cultures: Chemical factories of secondary metabolites.
Biotechnology Advances 2002; 20: 101–153.
Seon J.H., Yoo K.W., Cui Y.Y., Kim M.H., Lee S.J., Son S.H., Paek K.Y. Application of
bioreactor for the production of saponin by adventitious root cultures in Panax ginseng. In:
Altman, A., ed. Plant biotechnology and in vitro biology in the 21st century. Dordrecht,
The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic; 1999. 329–332.
Son S.H., Choi S.M., Hyung S.J., Yun S.R., Choi M.S., E.-M., Hong Y.-P. Induction and cultures
of mountain ginseng adventitious roots and AFLP analysis for identifying mountain
ginseng. Biotechnology Bioprocess Engineering 1999; 4: 119–123.
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