Plants are talented biochemists that produce a broad diversity of small molecules.These so-called specialized metabolites(SMs)play critical roles in the adaptive evolution of plants to defend against biotic and abioti...Plants are talented biochemists that produce a broad diversity of small molecules.These so-called specialized metabolites(SMs)play critical roles in the adaptive evolution of plants to defend against biotic and abiotic stresses,attract pollinators,and modulate soil microbiota for their own benefits.Many plant SMs have been used as nutrition and flavor compounds in our daily food,as well as drugs for treatment of human diseases.Current multi-omics tools have significantly accelerated the process of biosynthetic pathway elucidation in plants through correlation analyses,genetic mapping,and de novo biosynthetic gene cluster predictions.Understanding the biosynthesis of plant SMs has enabled reconstitution of naturally occurring specialized metabolic pathways in microbial hosts,providing a sustainable supply of these high-value molecules.In this review,we illustrate the general functions of several typical plant SMs in natural ecosystems and for human societies.We then provide an overview of current methods elucidating the biosynthetic pathways of plant SMs,and synthetic biology strategies that optimize the efficiency of heterologous biosynthetic pathways in microbial hosts.Moving forward,dissection of the functions and application of plant SMs by using current multidiscipline approaches would be greatly benefit to the scientific community and human societies.展开更多
Although normally termed "plant secondary metabolism", the phrase "plant specialized metabolism" has become accepted in recent years, since the boundary between plant primary and secondary metabolism for plant nat...Although normally termed "plant secondary metabolism", the phrase "plant specialized metabolism" has become accepted in recent years, since the boundary between plant primary and secondary metabolism for plant natural products is indistinct (Gang 2005). The early studies of plant natural products can be traced back thousands of years ago to the utilization of herbs for pharmaceutical and cosmetic purposes.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(31788103 to J.L.)the National Key R&D Program of China(2019YFA0906200 to S.H.)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(31920103003 to X.Q.).
文摘Plants are talented biochemists that produce a broad diversity of small molecules.These so-called specialized metabolites(SMs)play critical roles in the adaptive evolution of plants to defend against biotic and abiotic stresses,attract pollinators,and modulate soil microbiota for their own benefits.Many plant SMs have been used as nutrition and flavor compounds in our daily food,as well as drugs for treatment of human diseases.Current multi-omics tools have significantly accelerated the process of biosynthetic pathway elucidation in plants through correlation analyses,genetic mapping,and de novo biosynthetic gene cluster predictions.Understanding the biosynthesis of plant SMs has enabled reconstitution of naturally occurring specialized metabolic pathways in microbial hosts,providing a sustainable supply of these high-value molecules.In this review,we illustrate the general functions of several typical plant SMs in natural ecosystems and for human societies.We then provide an overview of current methods elucidating the biosynthetic pathways of plant SMs,and synthetic biology strategies that optimize the efficiency of heterologous biosynthetic pathways in microbial hosts.Moving forward,dissection of the functions and application of plant SMs by using current multidiscipline approaches would be greatly benefit to the scientific community and human societies.
文摘Although normally termed "plant secondary metabolism", the phrase "plant specialized metabolism" has become accepted in recent years, since the boundary between plant primary and secondary metabolism for plant natural products is indistinct (Gang 2005). The early studies of plant natural products can be traced back thousands of years ago to the utilization of herbs for pharmaceutical and cosmetic purposes.