Download Introducing Plant Cell Culture

The Next New Ingredient Can Be Yours:
Novel, Proprietary Ingredients from
Plant Cell Culture Technology
DianaPlantSciences uses the latest innovations to create
sustainable, patentable nutritional ingredients
The Next New Ingredient Can Be Yours:
Novel, Proprietary Ingredients
from Plant Cell Culture Technology
DianaPlantSciences uses the latest innovations to create
sustainable, patentable nutritional ingredients
T
he plant kingdom provides a wealth of beneficial phytochemicals widely used
in pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, foods and more. Traditionally,
ingredient suppliers produce these useful compounds by growing and harvesting
field-grown plants, then extracting the desired actives or plant secondary metabolites.
Although agriculture is a familiar practice, when it comes to generating actives on a
commercial scale, it may not be the most efficient nor environmentally friendly method.
Agriculture is land, labor, energy and water intensive. It’s also vulnerable to climatic
changes and pests, and, for certain plant species, there is not enough available land
in the appropriate climate to grow a commercially viable amount.
Introducing Plant Cell Culture Technology
Plant cell culture technology is the growing of plant cells containing
valuable plant compounds in a controlled environment. Plant cell
culture techniques have been practiced for decades. The first
callus plant cultures arose in the 20th century through research
conducted by scientist Gottlieb Haberlandt. Due to continued
technological evolution following Haberlandt’s fledgling studies,
plant cell culture technology may provide a more advantageous
and sustainable means of producing plant actives than traditional
field cultivation techniques.
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Plant cell culture
technology is
the growth and
reproduction of
plants, plant tissues
and/or plant cells
in a controlled
environment.
Plant Cell Culture History & Opportunities
Haberlandt
establishes first
cultures of plant cells
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1890s
First large
scale cultures
of plant cells
Commercial production
of shikonin and
berberine in Japan
1950s
1980s
years
1970s
1930s
Regeneration
of plant from
cell cultures
Identification and selection of
cell lines producing significant
levels of desired metabolites
Opportunities:
Pharmaceuticals
Cosmetics
Nutraceuticals & Food
▪ Paclitaxel production
▪ GMOs allowed
▪ Focus on plant stem cells
▪ Successful marketing,
limited efficacy
▪ Need for sustainable,
natural solutions
▪ Non-GMO methods
▪ Need for efficacy
SA. Wilson & SC Roberts, Plant Biotech J (2012), 10, pp 249-268
Unlike agriculture, which is conducted in the open environment, plant cell culture
technology utilizes bioreactors allowing stringent control of critical variables, such as
light, oxygen, water, chemical balance and nutrition, and uses less water and energy.
Growing whole plant cells in such a precise manner also eliminates erratic climactic
and ecological events—such as droughts and parasites—that threaten to adulterate or
destroy the product. Also, plant cell cultures promote sustainability because secondary
metabolites are harvested from a limited amount of biomass, thus reducing waste.
And with only two to three specimens needed to start the process, plant cell culture
ingredients are a sustainable resource that can produce an infinite supply under the
correct conditions. This is particularly beneficial in the case of rare and endangered
plants, when only a limited number of plants exist.
Targeting Plant Secondary Metabolites
The plant actives sought for use as dietary supplements are plant secondary metabolites.
Whereas plants rely upon primary metabolites (e.g., lipids and amino acids) for daily
functioning, they also produce secondary metabolites (i.e., phytochemicals) defensively,
in response to stressors such as ultraviolet (UV) radiation, pathogens, nutrient shortage,
temperature extremes and physical trauma such as insect attacks. Many potent
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Advantages of Plant Cell Culture Technology
Sustainability—When producing ingredients from plant cell culture
technology, fewer resources such as land, water, labor and energy are used.
■
Get the targeted actives without the unwanted compounds—Advanced
selection methods result in cells containing significantly more of the desired
compounds while reducing undesirable ones.
■ Resource conservation—Because plant cells are grown in a controlled
environment, the conditions are optimized for the plant cells to grow
without waste.
■ Reduced adulteration—Botanicals that are commonly adulterated can be
produced from plant cell culture technology with total traceability.
■ Proprietary Ingredient—The process and result can be patented allowing
for a differentiated, unique ingredient.
■
Green manufacturing methods—The plant cell remains intact throughout
the entire process. No GMO (genetically modified organism) methods are
employed. No toxic chemicals are used.
■ Ingredient consistency—Plant cell culture technology produces plant
cells with standardized purity of actives each time and is not harmed by
environmental factors such as rain, drought, light and pests or consistency.
■
antioxidants such as polyphenols classify as plant secondary metabolites. When
focusing on a specific secondary metabolite, scientists obtain the production of desired
phytochemicals with “elicitors” such as certain salts or metal ions. Elicitors activate the
plant’s innate stress response, prompting it to produce desirable actives.
Another way scientists achieve a target level of a specific secondary metabolite is with
plant cell selection. Like animal breeding, careful selection of cell lines with desirable traits
and discontinuation of lines with undesirable traits creates a final product that delivers
enhanced benefits (e.g., higher active content), with fewer unwanted characteristics (e.g.,
tastes, odors and color). In order to be effective, high throughput screening methods and
an understanding of a plant’s natural metabolic pathways is critical.
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Plant Cell Production Process
Preserves the Integrity of Plant Cells
PLANT
(Leaf, Stem,
Root, Embryo)
CALLUS
CULTURE
(Solid Media)
SUSPENSION
CULTURE
(Liquid Media)
BIOREACTOR
CULTURE
DOWNSTREAM
PROCESS
Realizing a Proprietary Ingredient from Plant Cell
Culture Technology
The strong demand for natural, environmentally friendly products bodes well for
continued development and increased use of plant cell culture technology. With the right
technical know-how, ingredients produced through plant cell culture could potentially
yield actives in large quantities with greater efficiency than traditional agricultural
methods in multiple—even rare—plant species not commercially available. In the case
of seasonal plants, ingredients from plant cell culture can help to avoid fluctuations and
volatility in price, yield, reliability and cost.
DianaPlantSciences Achieves Ingredients
from Plant Cell Culture for Nutritional Use
DianaPlantSciences has improved plant cell culture technology to create an innovative
and environmentally-friendly method of producing ingredients for the supplement, food
and cosmetic industries. Based in Portland, OR, a city renowned for its sustainability
minded and progressive culture, DianaPlantSciences develops potent phyto-actives
and tailored organoleptic and functional solutions while providing a sustainable
sourcing respectful of biodiversity and nature. DianaPlantSciences will both develop
its own ingredient brands as well as establish partnerships with companies seeking to
target and produce new ingredients utilizing plant cell culture technology. An ingredient
produced from plant cell culture technology can result in a unique product, enabling
manufacturers to obtain an original, proprietary ingredient that no other company can
duplicate. What’s more, plant cell culture uses the whole cell, which allows the target
compound to work synergistically with other inherent compounds; consequently, the
product cannot be replicated in an extract.
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Combining the “Whole-Food Approach”
with “High-Concentrated Actives”
“Some supplements are whole-food products where companies grow, harvest, crush
and dry the plants,” said Marc Philouze, president of DianaPlantSciences. “With these,
you have the whole plant with all of its nutrients and actives, but you don’t have a lot of
the active compound, so a dose needs to be a megadose to be efficacious.”
On the other hand, Philouze said a pharmaceutical approach seeks to attain the
highest concentration of an active, but removes other plant constituents that may
work synergistically with the actives. “In a typical purified fraction obtained by
extraction, you may have more actives, but they may or may not provide better
efficacy or value to the product because they are without the other constituents,” he
said, adding DianaPlantSciences takes a mix of these approaches and uses whole
cells grown with a much higher concentration of active compounds. “You get the best
of both worlds,” Philouze explained. “A higher concentration of actives as well as
the underlying wide distribution of nutrients and other elements
in the original plant.” Examples of secondary metabolites An ingredient produced
for commercial application include alkaloids, anthocyanins,
from plant cell culture
flavonoids, quinones, lignans, steroids, terpenoids, aromatics
and coumarins. These compounds have demonstrated a number technology can result
of benefits to maintain and improve health or support a healthy
in a unique product,
lifestyle. For example, the alkaloids taxol (paclitaxel), vinblastine
and vincristine are important for cancer risk reduction, and enabling manufacturers
plant-derived L-DOPA (L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine) is used
to obtain an original,
in mental health. The alkaloid capsaicin from cayenne pepper is
used as a food additive, a topical pain reliever and in supplements proprietary ingredient
marketed for digestive and heart health benefits. And highthat no other company
flavonoid polyphenols produced by plants have antioxidant, heart
and blood sugar benefits, qualities that make them attractive can duplicate.
additives to nutraceuticals, cosmetics and other product lines.
DianaPlantSciences Introduces Cocovanol™
Cocoa Actives
One such polyphenol-producing plant is cocoa (Theobroma cacao). Recent studies
have shown chocolate, in particular dark chocolate, may have significant health
benefits (Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2012;2012:906252). Although cocoa, or the cacao
bean, already contains polyphenols, DianaPlantSciences applied its expertise with
plant cell culture technology to produce Cocovanol™ Cocoa Actives, a food-grade,
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non-GMO ingredient with substantially higher standardized polyphenol content than
basic cocoa. Cocovanol also has self-affirmed GRAS (generally recognized as safe)
status. In addition, Cocovanol contains only traces of caffeine and the compound
theobromine, which lend bitterness to unaltered cocoa.
The polyphenols in Cocovanol are predominantly flavanols, antioxidant compounds
of low molecular weight that are found throughout the plant kingdom and have a
wide range of structure-dependent biological effects and functions in biochemistry,
physiology and ecology. In human health, they have been shown to have heart, blood
sugar management, cognitive function and antioxidant effects. As an ingredient,
flavanols may be used in numerous ways in nutraceuticals, foods, cosmetics and more.
In Cocovanol, 90 percent of the polyphenols are flavanols with a high proportion of
the higher-degree oligomers (>degree 5). This gives the product a notably high ORAC
(oxygen radical absorbance capacity) score, a measure of the total antioxidant power
of a food or nutritional product against the five predominant oxygen reactive species
(ORS) in the body: peroxyl radicals, hydroxyl radicals, peroxynitrite, super oxide anion
and singlet oxygen. Foods with a high ORAC value may provide health benefits.
Independent analysis by Brunswick Laboratories, Southborough, MA, gave Cocovanol
an ORAC score of 15,059 µmol trolox equivalents (TE)/gram, or a total ORAC value of
1.5 million per 100 grams, which shows it has a potent antioxidant capacity.
ORAC Test Results with Cocovanol™
ORACFN Test by Brunswick Laboratories
Antioxidant Power
Result*
Against Peroxyl Radicals
2,749
Against Hydroxyl Radicals
6,515
Against Peroxynitrite
164
Against Super Oxide Anion
4,990
Against Singlet Oxygen
641
15,059
Total ORACFN
*µmole TE/gram
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A Promising Future for Plant Cell Culture Technology
In the future, advances in plant cell culture technology will enable commercial
processing of even rarer plants and the actives they provide. DianaPlantSciences
is at present the only company focused on producing nutritional ingredients from
plant cell culture technology. It develops, manufactures and markets unique
ingredients that have real efficacy due to extremely high concentrations of active
compounds. In addition to developing its own brands, DianaPlantSciences is seeking
partners for producing new ingredients utilizing plant cell culture
technology. After a two-year development period, partners DianaPlantSciences
obtain a unique, proprietary product that cannot be replicated
develops, manufactures
by competitors. For example, DianaPlantSciences could work
with a manufacturer to produce a ginkgo product with increased and markets unique
levels of ginkgosides or a cinnamon product with a high level of
ingredients that have
target compounds, but without the carcinogenic coumarin.
“Using just two or three specimens of that plant, we develop real efficacy due
a process and product that enables a company to have
to extremely high
commercial scale and ingredient availability,” Philouze said.
“We work with plant cells, select the best-growing ones and concentrations of
then progressively select the best producers. We have the
active compounds.
ability and the controlled environment to overproduce the
active metabolites that we’re after.”
Plant cell culture technology is an efficient, environmentally friendly and natural
alternative to traditional agriculture or synthetic production. As the technology advances,
it will continue to enable the controlled production of a myriad of useful secondary
metabolites with numerous applications, and DianaPlantSciences is leading the way.
For more information about plant cell culture technology, visit plantcellculture.com. ●
DianaPlantSciences
18183 SW Boones Ferry Road,
Portland, OR 97224
Phone: +1 (503) 505-6977
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.dianaplantsciences.com
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