Commercial production hairy root culture

Fig. 5 shows an artificial seed production system using plantlets derived from hairy roots. The hairy roots must be cut to produce the artificial seeds. Fragmentation was carried out using a commercial blender with blades. Horseradish hairy roots cultured for 35 days without addition of plant growth... 

It is known that tropane alkaloids are synthesized in root pericicle and traslocated to leaves [41]. For this reason, the investigations on scopolamine production were mainly focused in the hairy root cultures of several Solanaceous plants [31, 42-45]. However, the yields obtained to date were not suitable for a commercial production in order to replace the extraction from the natural producer plants [46]. 

Recently, plant cells have also been considered to be an alternative host for the production of recombinant proteins since they are able to glycosylate proteins [133, 139]. Of the various systems used for cultivation, such as hairy roots, immobilized cells, and free cell suspensions, the latter is regarded to be most suitable for large-scale applications. Full-size antibodies, antibody fragments, and fusion proteins can be expressed in transgenic-plantcell systems, such as Nicotiana tahacum, pea, wheat, and rice using shake-flask or fermentation cultures [136]. Yet, these systems are still of low commercial importance due to their unadvantageous productivity. 

Additionally, many researchers are concentrated on the improvement of large scale cultures of hairy roots which could be very advantageous over the plant production for commercialization [59, 61]. The tropane alkaloid production in bioreactors, instead of then-isolation from plants is an interesting strategy because guarantees that the process will be carried out under defined and controlled conditions and consequently preventing or reducing the variations in the product quality and the alkaloid yield [47]. 

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