Size Distribution of Plant Cell Aggregates in Batch Culture

Plant cells in suspension cultures tend to form aggregates. This can affect the physiology of the cells and hence the production of valuable secondary metabolites. Aggregation is also important from a process engineering point of view. In this work, the change in the size distribution of plant cell aggregates in a batch culture is studied. The growth of suspension cultures of Capsicum frutescens was found to follow Monod kinetics with a maximum specific growth rate of 0.3125 day-’ and a saturation coefficient of 16.67gglucose 1-l. It was found that the size distribution became Gaussian after the exponential growth phase. Using a probability plot, the median size of cell aggregates and the standard deviation of the size distribution were determined to be 2.29 mm and 1.21 mm respectively.