Research Progress on Plant Cell Culture Technology and Its Application in Foods

Global climate change and rapid population growth put pressure on global production of food raw materials. The traditional planting industry is affected by climate, environmental and other factors and requires a significant investment of manpower, material resources and financial resources, which limits the production scale of plant foods. Using plant tissue culture technology to obtain callus for use as food resources or food supplements may be an effective way to solve this problem. Generally, plant tissue culture is considered to be an important branch of cellular agriculture, and the use of plant tissue culture technology can not only improve the contents of secondary metabolites in plant cells, but also allow for rapid cell culture and reduce the dependence of crop growth on the natural environment. While functional components obtained from plant cell culture have been widely used in the pharmaceutical, food additive and cosmetic industries, little literature has been found on the direct production of foods from cultured plant cells. In this paper, we review the process, features and food application of plant cell culture technology, and discuss the current challenges and future prospects for the production of plant foods using this technology.