Biosynthesis of plant natural products and characterization of plant biosynthetic pathways in recombinant microorganisms

Plant natural products are important medicinal and flavor and fragrance compounds. Many of these metabolites have complex structures that cannot be produced economically through total chemical synthesis. The production of natural products for consumer use or as scaffolds for more complex molecules has to rely upon extraction from plant materials or the development of engineered production hosts. Limitations in the development of engineered biosynthetic pathways stem from incomplete knowledge of plant biosynthetic pathways. There is a strong dependence on recombinant microorganisms to elucidate plant biosynthetic pathways and characterize individual biosynthetic enzymes. As more pathways are characterized, the emphasis on microorganisms will shift from single enzyme studies to the construction of short biosynthetic pathways for the targeted overproduction of compounds.