Importance of Plant Tissue Culture Techniques in Pharmaceutical Sciences

Year 2025, Volume: 8 Issue: 2, 102 - 123, 31.10.2025

Tugba Ercetin

https://doi.org/10.54994/emujpharmsci.1789745

Abstract

Plants serve as a significant source for the identification of novel compounds with therapeutic potential for pharmaceutical development. The rising demand for natural medicines has rendered the commercial cultivation of medicinal plants and the development of their active compounds increasingly significant. Plant tissue and cell culture techniques constitute a significant area of research in plant biotechnology, employed to improve the multiplication of medicinal plants and the synthesis of active compounds under regulated circumstances. Plant tissue and cell cultures serve as valuable alternatives in the pharmaceutical business, since they provide standardized, contaminant-free, and bio-sustainable systems for the manufacture of active medicinal ingredients. Plant tissue and cell cultures function as "bio-factories" for the synthesis of secondary metabolites, which are generally produced in minimal amounts inside plant tissues and are variably distributed across different plant organs (root, stem, leaf, fruit, etc.). Plant tissue culture facilitates the proliferation of undifferentiated plant cells, enabling the regeneration of entire plants or the cultivation of individual cells for the subsequent production of secondary metabolites. The plant tissue (explant) utilized to commence cell culture expansion at the injury site proceeds to proliferate, resulting in an unstructured cell mass termed a callus. Successful tissue culture studies that commence with callus cultures and progress to suspension cultures utilize bioreactors, enabling the quick and standardized generation of active substances. The advancement of plant cell culture research for the generation of active medicinal components and the enhancement of secondary metabolite diversity in limited quantities will yield significant contributions.

Keywords

bioreactors , callus , suspension cultures , plant cell cultures , secondary metabolites , phytopharmaceuticals

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