FLAVOR COMPOUNDS IN TISSUE-CULTURES OF CELERY

The main flavour compounds of celery are the phthallides and these were extracted from undifferentiated and differentiated callus and intact celery plants. Two phthallides, 3-isobutylidene-3a,4,5,6-tetrahydrophthallide and 3-isobutylidene-3a,4-dihydrophthallide were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrography (GC-MS) in the intact plant and the differentiated callus but appeared to be absent in the undifferentiated callus. In suspension culture the differentiated tissue produced a large number of embryos, most of which were at the torpedo stage after three weeks. The phthallide composition of this culture was comparable to that of the intact plants. © 1979.