Approaches to flavonoid production in plant tissue cultures

Flavonoids are low molecular-weight polyphenolic compounds found through-out the plant kingdom. They have a wide range of structure-dependent bi-ological effects and functions in the biochemistry, physiology and ecology of plants. Flavonoids may be exploited in many ways in food processing, cos-metic and pharmaceutics industry. The evolving commercial importance of flavonoids and a need for renewable resources of valuable chemicals has lead to attempts in developing alternative systems for their production. Different in vitro systems have been developed for production of flavonoids, e.g., in callus cultures, cell suspension cultures, root cultures or shoot cultures. The selection of highly productive lines as well as the optimalization of chemical and physical culture environments of cells for maximum productivity is the prerequisite for the commercial application of these systems. Key words: flavonoids, in vitro culture, plant cell culture, organ culture