紫杉醇生物合成的研究进展

Recent advances in the biosynthesis of taxol

紫杉醇是一种抗癌新药。紫杉醇及其衍生物还具有防治移植动脉硬化、抗瘢痕形成和抗血管生成等功能。目前,人们获得紫杉醇的方法主要有以下几种:直接从红豆杉中提取;化学全合成;化学半合成;细胞培养;内生真菌提取培养及代谢工程生产紫杉醇。已从红豆杉中克隆出了至少14个和紫杉醇生物合成相关的基因并进行了功能鉴定。紫杉醇生物合成途径的阐明带动了紫杉醇前体组合表达系统的研究。

Taxol is one of the most potent chemotherapeutic agents known, showing excellent activity against a range of cancers. In addition to anticancer, taxol has the effect of preventing graft arterioscleriosis, antiscaring formation and inhibiting angiogenesis. There are five possible routes to industrialize taxol production： isolation from the bark of the yew species, total synthesis, semisynthesis, tissue or cell culture, endophytic fungal fermentation and metabolism engineering. There are at least 14 genes related to the taxol biosynthesis had been cloned from yews and functionally expressed in different hosts. The combinational expression system of taxol makes progress as the clarification of biosynthetic pathway of taxol.