Abstract
An efficient method to characterize functions of many novel genes, which are discovered by genome analysis, is to overexpress the genes in cells and to analyze the phenotype of transformed cells using suspension culture system. However, because the growth of large numbers of independent plant cells in suspension usually require large facilities, a novel method to culture many independent cell lines with small quantity at the same time should be developed. Therefore, we developed a 96-well culture system using a 96-well deep plate, a gas permeable filter and a newly developed rotator for the 96-well deep plates. By using this system, we could cultivate tobacco BY-2 cells over six weeks without any growth defect under a condition to subculture once a week into flesh medium using a multi-channel pipette. Currently we are testing if this method can also be used to grow rice Oc cells in suspension.
