Aroma production by tissue cultures

Although plant tissue cultures have been in use for the past hundred years, adapting them for the production of aroma compounds started only in the 1970s. The use of tissue cultures in aroma production has its advantages, because plant cells, unlike whole plants, are not limited to geographic locations or the seasons. Cell mass can be doubled relatively rapidly and can be induced for the production of compounds in a coordinated manner. Compounds can be isolated from cells or the medium with relative ease. Therefore, it would seem to be ideal to use plant cell cultures for the production of aroma compounds. Cell cultures, however, also have some problems. The production of aroma compounds or their precursors is in relatively low amounts, and thus this production method is expensive. Additional expenses are the cost of the medium and the purification of the compounds for food use. Also, cell cultures can only be used effectively in systems for which the biochemical pathway of the aroma compounds is known. In this paper the results of experiments for the use of tissue cultures in the production of vanilla, raspberry, strawberry garlic, and onion aromas is discussed.