The production of useful compounds via plant tissue and organ culture systems has received increasing attention during recent years. Often applied tehniques are cell culture, organ culture and culture of genetically transformed cells and tissues. In most of the cases only low yields of the desired secondary metabolites were obtained by cell culture systems. Many efforts have been made to improve the productivity of the plant tissue cultures, such as studies on hormone-dependency, media composition or light effects. Examples of recent work in this field which may lead to a wider use of plant tissue culture are discussed.