Food ingredients from plant cell, tissue and organ cultures: Bio-safety and efficacy evaluations

Abstract

Plants are valuable source of a wide range of secondary metabolites, which are used as pharmaceuticals, flavors, fragrances, coloring agents and food additives. Various bioactive compounds are produced these days through plant cell, tissue and organ cultures (PCTOC) and the diverse products which are derived from PCTOC are available in the market as pharmaceuticals and food ingredients. Even though PCTOC products are of in vitro origin, they possess many components other than targeted compounds, and sometimes these components may be toxic, thus making the biosafety evaluations necessary for the PCTOC raw materials/products. Currently, well framed biosafety evaluation methods/procedures are not available for PCTOC raw materials/products. In this chapter, we have discussed various methods proposed by scientists and we have put forward a general criterion for evaluation of PCTOC products. We have also discussed two specific examples namely, tissue cultured mountain ginseng adventitious roots (TCMGARs) and tissue cultured Echinacea purpurea adventitious roots (TCEPARs) to illustrate the various steps involved in the process of safety evaluation.