Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, 975 N Warson Road, St. Louis, MO 63132, USA.
Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2011 Aug;91(4):949-56. doi: 10.1007/s00253-011-3449-2. Epub 2011 Jul 6.
Over 9,000 flavonoid compounds have been found in various plants, comprising one of the largest families of natural products. Flavonoids are an essential factor in plant interactions with the environment, often serving as the first line of defense against UV irradiation and pathogen attacks. Flavonoids are also major nutritional compounds in foods and beverages, with demonstrated health benefits. Some flavonoids are potent antioxidants, and specific flavonoid compounds are beneficial in many physiological and pharmacological processes. Therefore, engineering of flavonoid biosynthesis in plants or in microorganisms has significant scientific and economical importance. Construction of biosynthetic pathways in heterologous systems offers promising results for large-scale flavonoid production by fermentation or bioconversion. Genomics and metabolomics now offer unprecedented tools for detailed understanding of the engineered transgenic organism and for developing novel technologies to further increase flavonoid production yields. We summarize some of the recent metabolic engineering strategies in plants and microorganisms, with a focus on applications of metabolic flux analysis. We are confident that these engineering approaches will lead to successful industrial flavonoid production in the near future.
已在各种植物中发现超过 9000 种类黄酮化合物，它们构成了最大的天然产物家族之一。类黄酮是植物与环境相互作用的重要因素，通常作为抵御紫外线辐射和病原体攻击的第一道防线。类黄酮也是食物和饮料中的主要营养化合物，具有明显的健康益处。一些类黄酮是有效的抗氧化剂，特定的类黄酮化合物在许多生理和药理过程中有益。因此，在植物或微生物中进行类黄酮生物合成的工程具有重要的科学和经济意义。在异源系统中构建生物合成途径为发酵或生物转化的大规模类黄酮生产提供了有希望的结果。基因组学和代谢组学现在为详细了解工程转基因生物提供了前所未有的工具，并为进一步提高类黄酮产量开发了新技术。我们总结了植物和微生物中一些最近的代谢工程策略，重点介绍代谢通量分析的应用。我们相信，这些工程方法将在不久的将来导致成功的工业类黄酮生产。
