Plant cell culture for production of paclitaxel and other taxanes.
Great advances in cell cultures of Taxus spp. for production of Taxol (generic name: paclitaxel) and other taxanes (taxoids) have been achieved in the past decade. This article reviews the manipulation of inducing factors--elicitors, gas composition, osmotic pressure, and conditioned medium; bioprocessing strategies--combining of inducing techniques, two-phase and two-stage cultivation, semi-continuous and perfusion cultures, and feeding of precursors or sugars; and bioreactors and scale-up. Perspectives on a more rational and efficient process involving metabolic engineering are also discussed.
Zhong
Jian-Jiang
JJ
State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai 200237, China. jjzhong@ecust.edu.cn