A population balance model to modulate shear for the control of aggregation in Taxus suspension cultures.

Cellular aggregation in plant suspension cultures directly affects the accumulation of high value products, such as paclitaxel from Taxus. Through application of mechanical shear by repeated, manual pipetting through a 10 ml pipet with a 1.6 mm aperture, the mean aggregate size of a Taxus culture can be reduced without affecting culture growth.