Culturing conditions affecting the production of anthocyanin in suspended cell cultures of strawberry

The increase of anthocyanin content in suspended cell cultures of strawberry varied with the increase in the amount of pigmentation in pigmented cells and in number of pigmented cells in a culture. The anthocyanin yield was enhanced by increasing light irradiation, and this may have resulted from increased accumulation of anthocyanin in pigmented cells. The increased anthocyanin yield for the optimization of nitrogen (from MS to AN,,MS) may have resulted in increase in the percentage of pigmented cells in culture. The anthocyanin content increased and the cell density decreased as nutrients became the growth limiter, especially phosphate. In this case, the increase in the percentage of pigmented cells contributed to the increased anthocyanin content. Increasing the sucrose concentration also decreased the cell density and increased the anthocyanin content further. This was probably due to the influence of osmotic stress because the same results were seen with the addition of mannitol. Thus, excess sucrose, irrelevant to cell growth, may have become an osmotic agent.