Plant in vitro culture for the production of antioxidants--a review.

Plant in vitro cultures are able to produce and accumulate many medicinally valuable secondary metabolites. Antioxidants are an important group of medicinal preventive compounds as well as being food additives inhibiting detrimental changes of easily oxidizable nutrients. Many different in vitro approaches have been used for increased biosynthesis and the accumulation of antioxidant compounds in plant cells. In the present review some of the most active antioxidants derived from plant tissue cultures are described; they have been divided into the main chemical groups of polyphenols and isoprenoids, and several examples also from other chemical classes are presented. The strategies used for improving the antioxidants in vitro production efficiency are also highlighted, including media optimization, biotransformation, elicitation, Agrobacterium transformation and scale-up.