植物细胞培养是从植物材料创口处生长出的愈伤组织的诱导、继代、培养和植株再生过程。植物细胞培养体系可以用来生产食品、药品和许多工业用品。同时它可以在没有气候等环境因素的影响条件下研究植物细胞，是研究植物代谢的一个非常好的体系，也是转基因植物植株必须需要的一个基本技能。代谢工程是对细胞内代谢的理解、运用和改造的整体。代谢工程主要是在对细胞代谢了解的基础上，有目的利用和改造细胞代谢，从而更有效的完成物质转化、能量传导以及大分子组装过程。利用代谢工程技术，我们可以开发生物过程来替代不理想的化学过程，以减少污染和不可再生资源的消耗；可以提高农作物产量，可以提供更安全和有效的能量，可以更透彻的理解许多对疾病治疗有效的药物的生物合成机制。

Plant cells can be grown in isolation from intact plants in tissue culture systems. The cells have the characteristics of callus cells, rather than other plant cell types. These are the cells that appear on cut surfaces when a plant is wounded and which gradually cover and seal the damaged area. Pioneering cell culture processes for the production of secondary metabolites of wide-ranging food , medicine and industrial use. It is also an excellent system to study the metabolism of plant because of no influence from weather, and many other kinds of environment factor. Metabolic Engineering is a new approach to understanding and using metabolic processes. As the name implies, ME is the targeted and purposeful alteration of metabolic pathways found in an organism in order to better understand and use cellular pathways for chemical transformation, energy transduction, and supramolecular assembly. Knowledge acquired from this research will benefit society in a number of ways, including the ability to modify biological pathways to produce biological substitutes for less desirable chemical processes; allowing greater agricultural production, permitting more efficient and safer energy production, and; providing better understanding of the metabolic basis for some medical conditions that could assist in the development of new cures.