Undifferentiated plant cell cultures are widely used for fundamental and applied research for elucidation of biosynthetical pathways, production of secondary metabolites, screening systems for pharmacy and agrochemistry. The DSMZ collection of plant cell cultures was established in 1988 based on collections donated by the "Institut für Pharmazeutische Biologie" (University Munich) and the former firm Nattermann & Cie. (Cologne). Later many other scientists contributed by donation of cell lines.

The main functions of the DSMZ plant cell culture collection are to collect and deliver plant cell cultures with relevance to biotechnology, fundamental and applied research. Research activities are focused on the development of methods for cryopreservation and characterization of cell cultures, on monitoring of genetic and epigenetic stability and more recently on establishment of genetically transformed cell lines.

In the past a project entitled "Refinement of cryopreservation techniques for potato" was carried out in cooperation with the former Institute of Crop Plant Research (FAL), Braunschweig. The project was funded by “Bioversity International”.

Later the plant cell culture group participates in the CRYMCEPT project ("CRYMCEPT" is the acronym for a European Commission Research Project (Reference: QLK5-CT-2002-01279) entitled: Establishing Cryopreservation Methods For Conserving European Plant Germplasm Collections).

Work with other European partners is continued in the COST Action 871 “Cryopreservation of crop species in Europe” (Cryoplanet website) (EU website).

At present the DSMZ collection maintains more than 700 different plant cell lines from from more than 80 different plant families with priority to dicotyledoneous angiosperms. In addition to crop plant cultures, the collection consists of a large number of cultures derived from plant species containing secondary metabolites of pharmaceutical importance. Most of the cultures are maintained in a living state as calli. For monitoring stability of cultures secondary metabolite fingerprints by HPLC or GC, DNA fingerprinting and RAPD technology are both available.