Florinda T. Bacani | Susan A. Roces | Wayne R. Curtis
Discipline: Engineering
The development of large-scale systems for the cultivation of plant cell suspensions could enable the growth of biomass for the production of secondary metabolites. The only suitable instrument to cultivate large masses of plant cells would be a large aseptic bioreactor, which design could profoundly alter the biological response of a plant tissue culture. An airlift bioreactor system, lined with polyethylene polymer plastic. sterilized with 10% ethylene oxide in 90% carbon dioxide gaseous phase mixture was devised for the mass cultivation of Hyoscya.mus muticus cell~suspension culture. The growth of this plant cell culture was demonstrated in a large plastic~lined airlift bioreactor. After 13 days of batch culture, the 40-1iter gas-sparged airlift bioreactor (28.5~1 working volume, w.v.) contained cells with a biomass density of 2.9~kg. fresh weight (FW), equivalent to 199~g dry weight (DW). The growth of the culture achieved a sustained specific growth rate of 0.26 day']. The growth performance of cell culture in this reactor was found to be comparable to that in a modified stirred-tank bioreactor, also sterilized with EtG.
ISSN 0118-7473 (Print)
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