Plant tissue and organ culture has been extensively used from the beginning of the XX century for the
study and comprehensionof some primary biologicalmechanisms suchasmorphogenesis. However, with
the increasing demand of the market for novel products derived from plants, in vitro culture became a
reliable technique for the mass production of plant material. Moreover, the potential to use this technique
for the production of some bioactive compounds, such as phenolic compounds, is immense since
it allows the manipulation of the biosynthetic routes to increase the production and accumulation of
specific compounds. This work intends to make a brief historical review of in vitro culture, highlighting
its use for the production of bioactive compounds. Also, emphasizes the importance of phenolic compounds
for the consumer as well reviews the metabolic pathways involved in its production in plant
cells. Furthermore, it was carried out a comprehensive study on the work developed for the production
of plant phenolic compounds in in vitro cultures, as well as on the type of elicitors used to increase of
the same production; also a brief highlighting of the phenolic compounds which serve as elicitors. There
are numerous reports directed to the production of phenolic extracts in in vitro plant cultures, however
there is a lack in the production of individual phenolic compounds mainly due to the complexity of the
biosynthetic routes and extraction procedures. Elicitation procedures are often used to increase the production
of phenolics, achieving in most cases higher yields than in non-elicitated cultures. The increasing
production of bioactive phenolic extracts/compounds allows for their further applicability, namely in the
industry of functional foods or in pharmaceutical/medical fields