Primary And Secondary Metabolism Of Plant Cell Cultures

At the end of the initial meeting on Primary and Secondary Metabolism of Plant Cell Cultures at Schloss Rauischholzhausen, it was decided to convene similar events on a regular basis midway between the International Congress for Plant Tissue and Cell Cul ture. We felt it was necessary to bring representatives of the research teams working in this field together to assess progress as well as to discuss future directions. The Plant Biotechnology Institute of the National Research Council of Canada in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan was chosen to be the site for the second symposium held in 1988. The theme of this meeting was "The Regulation of Primary and Secondary Metabol ism in Plant Cells" and judging by the contributions published in this volume it was a timely and actual one indeed. I would like to thank my organizing committee and my research group for their efforts, the National Research Council of Canada for the financial assistance and the participants for their contributions which all contributed to make this symposium a success. A special thank you to Mrs. L. -Blashill and R. Gallays for their assistance in hosting this event. Last but not least I would like to thank our publisher, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg for their deci sion to publish the proceedings of this and future symposia.

It must have been some feeling of frustration invoked by the genus loci of big conferences which brought Don Dougall, Mike Fowler, and me over a cup of coffee to think of organizing a small meeting on cell culture metabol ism. The basic aim was to bring people working on "primary metabolism" and those who work on "secondary metabolism" to interact with each other, hopefully to induce some new approaches to utilize the cell culture technique more efficiently in basic research and in its practical application. The out come of this was the small symposium at SchloE Rauischholzhausen near GieEen (Germany), and the reader of this small volume of articles on topics discussed will judge to what extent this aim was realized. Although F.e. Steward was unable to attend the meeting, we were happy that he contributed a review on some important turning points of the cell culture method in the past, and at the end of the book some participants of the meeting attempted some prognosis on possible future developments, summarized by Mike Fowler. It was the wish of our publisher to organize the contributions as a summary of the major topics of research of the individual groups represented at the meeting. Due to this, some readers will certainly feel that important areas of research in the cell culture field are missing. This is regrettable, but space had to be limited to keep this volume at a reasonable price.

Since 1984 and 1988, when meetings were held on the topic of primary and secondary metabolism of plant cell cultures, there has been a clear shift of the focus of ongoing research. While the cell culture itself and the production of secondary metabolites and the biosynthetic pathways and the activity of enzymes were major topics, now these aspects are linked with genes, i.e. molecular biology becomes more prominent. This state-of-the-art book has contributions on such subjects as fermentation, enzymology of secondary metabolism, catabolism of secondary metabolites, elicitation of pathways and genetic modification of metabolic pathways. It includes contributions on the most recent achievements in the research on among other things tropane and indole alkaloids, phenolics, (iso)flavonoids, terpenes and cardenolides. It is an excellent review of the progress made in the past years and a perspective on the future developments.

Plant cell cultures are used extensively in studies of secondary metabolism, for the biosynthesis of pharmaceuticals, flavors, essences, and pigments. This book highlights recent developments in the in vitro growth of cultured plant cells and in the production of valuable secondary metabolites. Plant Cell Culture Secondary Metabolism details research on many exciting areas including: