Coffee cell cultures

Schulthess, B.H. and Baumann, T.W., Stimulation of caffeine biosynthesis in suspension cultured coffee cells and the in-situ existence of 7-methylxanthosine, Phytochemistry, 38,1381,1995. 

Chromosome aberration induced. Lyo-philized extract of the roasted seed, in cell culture at a concentration of 3.9 mg/mL, was active on human lymphocytes. Caffeinated and decaffeinated coffees without S9 mix was tested. The extract produced weak activity with S9 mix . Extract of the roasted seed, in cell culture at variable concentrations, was active on human lymphocytes. Metabolic activation reduced the effect . 

Nakasato, F., M. Nakayasu, Y. Fujita, M. Nagao, M. Terada, and T. Sugimura. Mutagenicity of instant coffee on cultured Ghinese hamster lung cells. MutatRes 1984 141(2) 109-112. Kinlen, L. J. and K. McPherson. Pancreas cancer and coffee and tea consumption a case-control study. Br J Cancer 1984 49(1) 93-96. 

In connection with plant breeding programs, cell and tissue cultures of Coffea species have been studied extensively. We do not deal with this work here, however, and the reader is referred to Baumann and Frisch-knecht for a review (740,741). Although caffeine (46) can be easily isolated from coffee beans at low cost, a number of studies have been made on the production of caffeine in cell cultures of Coffea. The biotechnological aspects of the caffeine production by means of cell cultures has been reviewed by Prenosil et al. (109). 

One interesting paper by Suehara et al. used NIR to measure the cell mass in solid cultures of mushroom.41 Because mushrooms grow in solid matrices, spectroscopic analyses are sometimes difficult to perform. With coffee grounds as the main medium, reflection NIR was used for the determinations. The correlation between the glucosamine (analyte determined) predicted and that found by the conventional method was 0.992 with an SEP of 0.346 mg/g. 

Epidemiological studies showed positive association of coffee drinking and cancers of pancreas and ovary (18,19,20), although reports describing negative association are also available (21,22). In an experimental animal study, no carcinogenic activity of coffee was reported (46,47). However, this data should be reconsidered in terms of the genotoxic activities of coffee revealed in bacteria and cultured mammalian cells. 

Recent reviews on sample preparation include that of Christie (70a) on obtaining lipid extracts from tissues and that of Fried (70b) on obtaining and handling biological materials and prefractionating extracts for lipid analyses. Chapter 2 in Hammond (la) also provides detailed descriptions on lipid extraction of photosynthetic tissue, oilseeds, tiger prawns (crustaceans), coffee whitener, wheat flour, spores, and volatile fatty acids from cells grown in culture media. 

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