Abstract
To control the metabolism of industrially useful materials in plants, we are analyzing metabolism-related genes by high-through-put approaches. We prepare resources of transgenic suspension-cultured Arabidopsis T87 cell lines carrying Arabidopsis and Lotus japonicus genes expressed under strong promoters. Unless developmental phenomena are concerned, suspension cultured cells are ideal for functional analyses. However, continuous maintenance of many cultured lines is laborious, constraining high-through-put analyses. Here we established an easy and reliable method of cryopreservation of suspension-cultured Arabidopsis cells. Cultured cells suspended in sodium alginate solution were dispensed into calcium chloride solution for beads formation. The cells in beads were appropriately dehydrated on silica gels, and then immersed in liquid nitrogen for storage. The stored cells were warmed to room temperature and grown on agar medium. Under optimal conditions, the recovery of viable cells was almost 100%. We are examining the effects of cryopreservation on metabolite and gene expression profiles.
