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Cellules végétales dédifférenciées

Dedifferentiated Plant Cells Technology

A sustainable technology to design specific active ingredients for beauty care

Marine halophyte plants, naturally exposed to stressing conditions such as salinity and UV exposure, develop specific defense mechanisms that make them incomparable resources to get effective active ingredients for beauty care. However, some species, victim of their own success or affected by human activity, have become vulnerable and need to be protected.

Committed to protecting endangered species and preserve biodiversity, BiotechMarine, a subsidiary of SEPPIC, was one of the first company to have developed dedifferentiated marine plant cells cultivation for cosmetics in 2006, creating a bank that guarantees the plant survival.

Why Use Dedifferentiated Plant Cells?

The specific features of dedifferentiated cells are the absence of any specialization character, as for stem cells, and their potential to contain all of the plant components. Dedifferentiated plant cells are both able to self-renew at an undifferentiated stage or to differentiate into all the cellular types regenerating an entire plant, depending on the cultivating conditions.

Each kind of metabolism generates the production of specific metabolites, the dedifferentiated cells act as a “molecular factory”, waiting for the good culture conditions to synthesize targeted active ingredients, eventually with different compositions from the native plant.

A Sustainable Cultivation Technology

The plant cells cultivation involves several growing steps in sterile conditions:

  • The first step is to obtain dedifferentiated cells. Thin plant tissue pieces are cut from a fresh marine plant under sterile conditions and placed on a solid culture medium that is specific to each plant species and ensures that the newly generated cells remain in dedifferentiated state. This cells aggregate is called a callus and is sampled and transplanted on a fresh solid culture medium. Callus subculture is repeated until its structure is smoothed and liquid dispersible.
  • In a second step, small parts of the callus are transferred into a liquid cultivation medium under a permanent agitation in order to disperse the cells. Successive cultivation steps are done up to scale up in bioreactors.
  • In a last step, cell cultures are centrifugated and lyophilized to obtain 100% pure lyophilized and stable dedifferentiated cells called CELTOSOME™, ensuring maximum stability and bio-availability of the natural active molecules.
Since 2006, this expertise has been used by BiotechMarine to offer a reliable supply and access to the “plant factory” without altering the plants survival.
Sustainable cultivation technology


“Marine plants have developed a very unique metabolism. Our expertise in plant cells culture gives us access to this metabolism in a sustainable way.”

Julien Fouilland, R&D Project Manager Biotechnologies at BiotechMarine