The metabolomic profiling of Vitis vinifera cell suspension cultures with and without silver nitrate was performed by H-1 NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectrometry and principal components analysis (PCA), to assess the efficacy of this method for the characterization and monitoring of plant cell lines. The PCA of the H-1 NMR spectra of the aqueous fractions allowed a clear discrimination of V vinifera cell suspension culture samples with and without silver nitrate treatment by the first three principal components (PC1, PC2, and PC3), which cumulatively accounted for 95.9% of the variation in all variables. In particular, the score plots by the combining PC1 versus PC2 and PC2 versus PC3 facilitated an excellent separation of samples. In addition, the major peaks in H-1 NMR spectra contributing to the discrimination were assigned to lactate, alanine, acetic acid, choline, fructose, a-glucose, and sucrose. This method based on metabolomic analysis allows the efficient monitoring and the differentiation of normal cell suspension system from elicited systems without any prepurification steps. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.