Department of Plant Science, University of California, Davis, CA, U.S.A.
Plant Biology Graduate Group, University of California, Davis, CA, U.S.A.
Emerg Top Life Sci. 2022 Apr 15;6(2):153-162. doi: 10.1042/ETLS20210248.
Plants produce a broad variety of specialized metabolites with distinct biological activities and potential applications. Despite this potential, most biosynthetic pathways governing specialized metabolite production remain largely unresolved across the plant kingdom. The rapid advancement of genetics and biochemical tools has enhanced our ability to identify plant specialized metabolic pathways. Further advancements in transgenic technology and synthetic biology approaches have extended this to a desire to design new pathways or move existing pathways into new systems to address long-running difficulties in crop systems. This includes improving abiotic and biotic stress resistance, boosting nutritional content, etc. In this review, we assess the potential and limitations for (1) identifying specialized metabolic pathways in plants with multi-omics tools and (2) using these enzymes in synthetic biology or crop engineering. The goal of these topics is to highlight areas of research that may need further investment to enhance the successful application of synthetic biology for exploiting the myriad of specialized metabolic pathways.
植物产生具有独特生物活性和潜在应用的多种特殊代谢物。尽管具有这种潜力，但在整个植物界，大多数控制特殊代谢物生产的生物合成途径在很大程度上仍未得到解决。遗传学和生化工具的快速发展增强了我们识别植物特殊代谢途径的能力。转基因技术和合成生物学方法的进一步发展将这一目标扩展为设计新途径或将现有途径转移到新系统中，以解决作物系统中长期存在的困难。这包括提高抗非生物和生物胁迫能力、提高营养含量等。在这篇综述中，我们评估了使用多组学工具（1）鉴定植物特殊代谢途径和（2）在合成生物学或作物工程中使用这些酶的潜力和局限性。这些主题的目标是突出需要进一步投资的研究领域，以增强合成生物学在利用众多特殊代谢途径方面的成功应用。
